/.  %J~f . 


/  J 


^  PRINCETON,  N.  J.  ^ 

BV  4501  .W64  1870 
Williams,  William  R.,  1804- 

1885. 
Religious  progress 


RELIGIOUS  PROGRESS. 


RELIGIOUS  PROGRESS; 


DISCOURSES 


ON  THB 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  CHARACTER 


BT 


V 


WILLIAM  R.  WILLIAMS. 


The  morality  of  tbe  Bible  excepted,  there  hae  nerer  appeared  an  ethical  nstein— oriental  or 
western,  which  might  not  fairly  be  described  as  a  splendid  enormity — or  a  glittering  fraermeott 
which  owed  all  iu  ralue  to  the  spoliation  of  some  spumed  and  forgotten  qualities.— /cooc  TViylor. 

Praesena  quisque  gradua  nibieqnentem  pant  et  facBem  leddit ;  lubaequeni  priorem  tempeni 
ac  perScit.— .Sangal. 


BOSTON: 


GOULD      AND      LINCOLN, 

69    ■WASHINGTON     STREET. 

NEW    YORK:     SHELDON,    BLAKEMAN    &    CO. 

CINCINNATI :   GEORGE  S.  BLANCIIARD. 

18  70. 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1850,  by 

WILLIAM  R.  WILLIAMS, 

In  the  Clerk's  OflBce  for  the  ©outhera  District  of  New  Yoiib 


TO 

ELISHA    TUCKER,    D.D., 

OF    CHICAGO, 

THESE    LECTUBES,    PREPARED    AT    HIS    SUGGESTIOlSr 

AND   PUBLISHED   BY   HIS   REQUEST, 

ARE    AFEECTIONATELT    INSCRIBED 

BT  HIS  FRIEND  AND  BROTHER. 

New  York,  Octobei  1850. 


PREFACE. 

The  following  Lectures  were  originally  prepared  for  the  pul- 
pit, and  delivered  to  the  peopie  of  his  charge  by  the  author. 
In  a  time,  when  the  eyes  of  the  nations  are  so  generally  strained 
towards  the  undefined  and  glowing  horizon  of  the  Future,  and 
when  the  cry  of  "  Progress"  has  awakened  alike  so  much  of  soh- 
citude  and  of  hope,  it  seemed  not  unfitting  that  a  Christian  pastor 
should  call  his  hearers  to  consider  the  elements  and  the  laws 
of  that  higher  moral  progress  stretching  into  eternity,  of  which 
the  gospel  of  Christ  witnesses,  and  for  which  the  grace  of  God 
alone  qualifies  us.  It  was  the  belief  of  some  of  his  hearers,  that 
the  reflections  thus  presented  might  find  readers.  To  the  favor 
of  that  God  whose  blessing  alone  can  give  these  imperfect 
sketches  acceptance  or  usefulness,  they  are  commended. 

W.  R.  W. 

New  York,  October,  1850. 


CONTENTS. 

PAOC 

LECTURE   I. — Religion  a  Principle  of  Growth,    .  13 

II. — Faith  its  Root, 37 

m.— Virtue, 60 

IV. — Knowledge, 80 

V. — Temperance 104 

VI.— Patience, 134 

VII.— Godliness, 160 

Vin. — Brotherly  Kjndness 182 

IX.— Charity, 206 

Appendix, 237 


AND  BESIDE  THIS,  QIVINQ  ALL  DILIGENCE,  ADD  TO  TOUB  FAITH 
TIBTDE ;  AJfD  TO  VIRTUE  KNOWLEDGE ;  AND  TO  KNOWLEDGE  TEM- 
FZBANOE;  AND  TO  TEMPERANCE  PATIENCE;  AND  TO  PATTENOB 
godliness;  AND  TO  GODLINESS  BEOTHEBLY  KINDNESS;  AND  TO 
BKOTHEBLT   KINDNESS  OHABITT. 


LECTURE    I. 


RELIGION    A    PRINCIPLE    OF    GROWTH. 


"  ADD  TO  YOUR    FAITH   " 

2  Peter,  i.  S 


Our  age  is  writing  "  progress"  on  its  banners, 
and  sends  along  the  benches  of  its  schools,  and  the 
ranks  of  its  combatants,  as  the  watchword  of  the 
times :  "  Onwards."  It  bids  us  to  forget  the  things 
that  are  behind,  as  incomplete  and  unsatisfactory, 
and  to  press  toward  those  which  are  yet  before  us. 
We  believe  that  the  gospel,  and  it  alone,  adequately, 
and  to  the  full  content  of  the  heart,  meets  this 
deeply-seated  craving  of  our  times.  Religion  is  a 
principle  of  perpetual  progress.  Not  that  it  distends 
and  pieces  its  old  creed  by  constant  innovations  ;  or 
retracts  the  severity  of  its  early  warnings  and  re- 
strictions ;  or  makes  Fashion  its  Sinai.  Not  that  it 
is  the  docile  handmaid  of  Philosophy,  or  the  con- 
tented retainer  and  serf  of  worldly  rulers,  wearing 
their  livery,  taking  their  wages  and  orders,  and  act- 
ing merely  as  a  higher  branch  of  their  police, — a 
spiritual  constabulary  force.  If  it  grew  thus  with 
the  growth  of  secular  systems  and  governments,  it 
must  on  the  other  hand  share  in  their  decay,  and 


li  RELIGIOUS     PROGRESS.. 

perish  in  their  fall,  like  a  parasitic  plant  blasted  by 
the  death  of  its  sturdier  supporter. 

But  setting  before  us,  as  the  great  end  of  our  ex- 
istence, and  as  the  only  perfect  model  of  moral  excel- 
lence, the  Infinite  Jehovah,  it  requires,  and  it  also 
ministers  an  ever-growing  conformity  to  Him.  And 
yet  the  Exemplar,  thus  to  be  approached,  is  ever 
above  the  highest  soarings  of  our  adoration,  gratitude, 
and  love.  The  elevation  of  our  moral  ascent  towards 
him  widens  continually  the  horizon  of  pur  knowl- 
edge, and  deepens  the  sense  of  our  dependence  and 
deficiency, — and  earth  and  self  are  thus  made  con- 
tinually to  dwindle.  Mere  terrene  virtue  becomes 
soon  giddy  and  haughty,  in  proportion  to  the  height 
of  its  real  or  imaginary  flights.  But  the  grace  of 
Christ  Jesus  makes  lowliness  and  self-renunciation  to 
increase  in  proportion  with  the  increase  of  true  wis- 
dom and  goodness.  As  it  spreads  more  canvass  to  the 
breeze,  it  steadies  with  new  and  heavier  ballast  the  keel. 
And  the  more  humbly  and  deeply  this  grace  is  imbibed, 
the  richer  are  its  effects  on  the  individual  heart,  and 
on  the  character  and  well-being  of  the  nation,  and  on 
the  movements  and  destinies  of  the  age.  Each  new 
trial  of  its  infinite  resources  displays  still  new  depths 
of  truth  adequate  to  every  emergency  of  every  people, 
and  of  every  time.  The  infatuation  of  its  enemies 
disputes  this  fact.  They  would  compliment  the  re- 
ligion of  the  cross  into  the  grave,  as  an  old-world  ex- 
cellence, that  is  now  obsolete  ;  or,  others  of  them,  hoot 
it  out  of  sight  as  a  detected  and  spent  imposture. 
The  remissness  of  its  friends  suppresses  or  obscures 


RELIGION    A    PRINCIPLE    OF    GROWTH.  15 

this  same  cliaractcr  of  permanent  development  in  true 
piety.  But  we  suppose  the  times  in  which  we  live, 
eminently  to  need  that  Christians  remember  and  act 
upon  the  principle,  that  their  religion  is  a  law  of 
moral  and  interminable  growth.  "  Grow  in  grace," 
is  the  apostle's  injunction  to  all  recipients  of  that 
grace.  It  is  the  secret  and  rule  of  personal  reform, 
constantly  advancing,  and  of  social  amelioration,  en- 
franchisement and  elevation.  For  the  gospel  alone  it  ia 
that  can  meet  the  world's  wants  in  their  highest  and 
fullest  sense ;  coming  to  right  the  wronged,  and  to 
guide  the  darkling,  and  to  relieve  the  wretched,  and 
to  uplift  the  down-trodden.  Compared  with  its  high 
aims,  the  loftiest  quarry  of  earthly  ambition  is  but 
low  and  poor.  The  saint  wins  victories  that  an  Alex- 
ander might  have  coveted  in  vain,  for  better  is  he  that 
ruleth  his  spirit  than  he  that  taketh  a  city.  And  the 
negro,  who  in  the  low,  dark  slave-hut,  breathes  out 
confidingly  his  departing  soul,  trusting  the  Saviour 
and  entering  heaven,  has  a  glory  which  all  his  armies 
and  all  his  conquests  would  of  themselves  fail  to  give 
to  the  expiring  Napoleon. 

This  trait  in  the  gospel, — its  character  as  a  prin- 
ciple of  steady  and  indefinite  growth,  and  of  limitless 
advancement, — needs  to  be  pondered.  Our  business  is 
now  indeed,  not  so  much  with  the  influence  of  this  re- 
ligion on  the  community,  as  on  the  individual  heart 
and  character.  But  the  individual  elevated,  uplifts 
necessarily  the  family  and  state  and  age  of  which  he 
forms  a  part,  and  in  which  he  is  a  necessary  and  vital 
element.     There  is  much  in  the  present  condition  of 


16  RELIGIOUS     PROGRESS. 

the  churchi3S,  and  muoh  in  the  present  aspect  of  thd 
world,  that  makes  this  progressive  energy  of  Chris- 
tianity, a  lesson  needing  now  to  be  especially  urged  by 
the  teachers  and  heeded  by  the  disciples  of  this  faith. 
The  church,  we  said,  needs  in  this  age,  to  be  kept 
in  mind  of  the  great  truth,  that  there  remains  yet 
much  land  to  be  possessed,  not  only  as  the  common 
heritage  of  the  faithful,  but  as  the  personal  allotment, 
and  homestead,  so  to  speak,  of  each  one  of  the  faithful. 
The  churches,  re-discovering  a  long  neglected  duty, 
are  now  attempting  to  evangelize  the  heathen.  It  is 
an  age  of  Missions.  The  islands  of  the  Pacific  have 
heard  the  cry  after  the  lapse  of  eighteen  centuries, 
that  our  earth  has  been  honored  and  blessed  by  the 
coming  of  a  Divine  Redeemer.  China  has  shuddered 
to  see  the  long  dominion  of  her  Confucius  and  her 
Boodh  invaded  by  the  gospel  of  Jesus  the  Nazarene. 
The  Shasters  of  Braminism  find  their  sacred  Sanscrit 
tongue  employed,  by  the  diligence  and  fidelity  of  mis- 
sionary translators,  to  utter  the  oracles  of  that  One 
True  God,  who  will  banish  from  under  the  heavens 
which  they  have  not  made,  and  which  He  has  made, 
all  the  hundred  thousand  gods  of  the  Hindoo  Pan- 
theon, with  all  the  other  idols  of  the  nations,  however 
ancient  and  however  popular.  The  tinglings  of  a  new 
life  from  on  high  seem,  along  the  coasts  of  Asia  and 
of  Africa,  shooting  into  nations  that  Paganism  held  for 
centuries  senseless  and  palsied.  Is  not  Ethiopia  soon 
to  be.  as  the  prophetic  eye  of  the  Psalmist  long  ages 
ago  saw  het,  stretching  out  her  hands  unto  G-od  ? 
But    whilst   each     Christian   church,    each  band   of 


RELIGION    A    PRINCIPLE    OF    GROWTH.  17 

spiritual  disciples,  in  lands  long  evangelized  is  thus 
lengthening  the  cords  of  her  tent  to  take  in  the  Gen- 
tiles under  its  broad  canopy,  she  must  in  consequence, 
and  as  it  were  in  counterpoise,  of  the  extension, 
strengthen  her  stakes  at  home,  to  bear  the  increased 
tension  and  the  extended  shelter.  Her  supports  must 
be  proportionately  augmented  at  home,  by  a  deepen- 
ing piety  and  a  sturdier  vigor  of  principle  in  her 
discipleship,  or  the  work  will  soon  come  to  a  stand 
abroad.  A  sickly  and  bedwarfed  Christianity  here 
will  not  furnish  the  requisite  laborers,  or  the  needful 
funds.  Expansion  without  solidity  will  bring  upon 
our  Zion  the  ruin  of  the  arch  unduly  elongate4  and 
heavily  overloaded.  Christendom  itself  must  be  more 
thoroughly  Christianized,  before  Heathendom  will  re- 
linquish its  old  character  and  worship,  and  learn  our 
creed  and  love  our  Saviour.  Already  the  zeal  and 
heroic  sacrifices  of  some  of  our  recent  converts  shame 
and  should  stimulate  the  comparative  worldliness 
and  lukewarmness  of  the  churches  that  had  first  sent 
to  them  the  missionary  and  the  Bible. 

The  churches  have  again  gloried  in  the  claim,  that 
theirs  has  been  an  Ag-e  of  Revivals,  in  which  the 
work  of  conversion  has  been  rapid,  and  the  Divine 
Word  has  had  its  free  cour.se  over  the  community. 
Far  as  these  scenes  and  seasons  of  religious  profiting 
have  been,  really  and  purely,  the  work  of  .Grod's  Spirit, 
they  should  call  forth  our  praises  to  the  grace  that 
gave  them,  and  our  prayers  and  best  efforts  for  their 
continuance  and  extension.  But  where  man's  work 
has  undertaken  to  replace  God's  work,  vigilance  and 


18  RELIGIOUS     PROGRESS, 

fearless  fidelity  are  needed  on  the  part  both  of  the 
ministry  and  the  churches,  lest  God  should  be  pro- 
voked to  scorn  the  service  and  the  worshippers,  when 
censers  and  altars  have  been  blazing  with  strange  fire. 
And  when,  as  often  it  has  been,  God's  Spirit  has 
really  wrought.  Christians  need  to  keep  in  view,  for 
themselves  and  for  their  new  found  brethren,  the 
great  truth  that  godliness  is  a  life  and  a  growth.  In 
its  beginning,  indeed,  a  change,  or  turning,  or  con- 
version, the  importance  of  which  cannot  be  exag- 
gerated ;  that  change  is  but  initial  to  an  ever-growing 
conformity  ;  that  turning,  the  entrance  into  a  way  to 
be  patiently  travelled  ;  and  that  conversion,  the  pas- 
sage from  an  earthly-miudedness  which  went  ever 
downward,  into  a  heavenly-mindedness  which  as  ne- 
cessarily mounts  evermore  upward.  The  church  must 
not  allow  herself  to  be  satisfied  with  suspicious,  or  at 
best  but  superficial  evidences  of  conversion  ;  and  to 
DC  contented  by  accounting  an  increase  of  members, 
however  won,  and  however  taught,  necessarily  an  in- 
crease of  her  strength.  The  church  is  to  be,  indeed, 
to  those  whom  a  true  regeneration  has  made  the  babes 
of  Christ's  household,  a  nursery,  full  of  provident  ten- 
derness, and  patient  forbearance  :  but  it  is  to  be  also, 
for  its  members  of  varied  advantages  and  longer  date, 
something  more  than  this  ; — a  camp  no  less  than  a 
nursery.  The  trainers  of  God's  sacramental  host  may 
not  always  be  employed  in  feeding  and  swathing  ;  and 
although  the  new-born  babe  is  to  desire  the  sincere 
milk  of  the  word,  the  more  advanced  disciples  are  re- 
buked   by   the    apostle,    if,    after   years,    and    oppor- 


RELIGION    A    PRINCIPLK    OF    GROWTH.  19 

tunities,  and  experience,  they  need'  to  be  "taught 
again  the  first  principles  of  the  oraches  of  God,  and 
are  become  such  as  have  need  of  milk  and  not  of 
strong  meat — unskilful  in  the  word  of  righteous- 
ness ;"*  and  not  "  going  on  unto  perfection  ;"t  when 
''  for  the  time"  spent  in  Christian  profession  and  un- 
der varied  religious  nurture,  they  "  ought  to  be 
teachers  ;"1:  masterly  instructors  of  others,  rather  than 
feeble  neophytes  in  the  faith. 

It  is,  again,  a  memorable  fact  in  the  present  po- 
sition of  Christ's  people,  that  the  age  is  one  of  his- 
torical research.  The  religious  controversies  of  our 
times  seem  to  transfer  themselves  into  that  historic 
field.  The  battle  with  the  enemy  at  the  gates  soon 
shifts  its  scene  to  the  graves  of  the  fathers,  and  the 
monuments  of  the  old  Past.  There  is,  on  the  part  of 
the  favorers  and  of  the  opposers  alike  of  spiritual  re- 
ligion, an  anxious  tendency  to  inquire  into  the  creeds 
and  the  deeds  of  the  forefathers,  A  D'Aubigne  is 
fighting  over  again  the  old  battles,  and  reviving  the 
forgotten  watchwords  of  the  Reformation,  by  his 
graphic  portraiture  of  the  men  and  the  events  of  that 
stirring  era.  The  Puritan  Fathers  are  beginning  to 
know  the  honors  of  a  partial  resurrection,  as  our  age 
is  disinterring  and  relieving  them  from  the  foul  cere- 
ments in  which  they  were  enwrapped,  and  the  lying 
epitaphs  under  which  they  were  buried,  by  the  lewd 
and  godless  age  that  immediately  succeeded  them. 
As  we  look  on  the  stalwart,  spiritual  proportions  of 
these  ancient  worthies,  Christians  of  our  own  day  seem 

*  Heb.  V.  11-14.  t  Heb.  vi.  1.  %  Heb.  v.  12. 


20  RELIGIOUS     PROGRESS. 

convicted  of  comparative  degeneracy.  With  larger 
means,  and  wider  opportunities,  we  appear  to  accom- 
plish less  than  did  these  devoted  men.  As  we  look  at 
their  writings  so  voluminous  and  rich,  and  at  their 
toils  so  varied  and  incessant,  their  fierce  and  absorb- 
ing conflicts,  and  their  far-reaching  and  still-brighten- 
ing influence,  we  seem  to  ourselves  like  mere  infants 
in  the  tribes  of  Israel,  when  handling,  in  wonder  and 
despair,  the  sword  of  G-oliath,  and  remembering  how  a 
David  wielded  it  against  its  stout  owner,  or  when 
touching  the  bedstead  of  Og,  king  of  Bashan,  that 
was  nine  cubits  long  ; — a  dwindling  race  who  may  not 
wear  the  armor,  or  renew  the  victories  of  those  who 
have  preceded  us.  And  yet  what  were  the  Puritans,  or 
the  Reformers  even,  to  the  primitive  Christians  ?  The 
honor  and  memorial  of  an  Owen,  a  Bunyan,  or  a 
Baxter,  a  Samuel  Rutherford,  a  John  Knox,  a  Simon 
Menno,  a  Latimer,  a  Calvin  or  a  Luther,  pale  beside 
the  story  of  the  fi.shermen  apostles,  who  cheered  by  no 
precedents,  and  without  the  furniture  of  learning,  or 
wealth,  or  numbers,  stood  forth  confronting  the  dark 
Sanhedrim,  and  lifting  at  the  foot  of  Csesar's  throne 
an  un blenched  brow,  and  delivering  before  Pride  and 
Might  a  cheerful  testimony  that  faltered  not,  even 
whilst  they  heard  the  roar  already  of  the  lions  which 
in  the  dens  of  the  amphitheatre  were  awaiting  their 
Christian  victims,  and  whilst  they  saw  the  ruddy 
glare  of  those  martyr  fires  even  then  closing  the 
earthly  existence  of  so  many  of  their  meek  fellow 
confessors.  To  complete  their  work,  and  to  gather  in 
the  full  fruits  of  that  covenant,  of  which  they  seized 


RELIGION    A    PRINCIPLE    OF    GROWTH.  21 

the  first  ripe  cars  only,  we  need  their  spirit.  Their 
memory  is  a  summons.  And  thus,  we  say,  the  his- 
tories of  the  past,  as  they  are  in  our  times  awakening 
new  interest  and  study,  challenge  it  of  the  churches, 
that  they  become  more  than  they  now  are,  full  of 
piety  and  mighty  in  faith,  and  more  closely  conformed 
to  what  their  godly  forerunners  were,  firm  in  trust, 
and  valiant  in  deed, — fearlessly  defying  man,  because 
simply  relying  on  God. 

2,  And  if,  from  the  peculiar  state  and  needs  of  the 
churches,  we  turn  to  review  the  present  aspect  of  the 
world,  we  seem  to  discover  similar  reasons, -why  the 
churches  should  not,  now  at  least,  overlook  the  fact, 
that  the  gospel  is,  to  its  obedient  disciples,  a  principle 
of  continuous  advancement,  a  law  of  expansion  and 
moral  elevation. 

The  world,  falsely  or  with  justice,  is  shouting  its 
own  progress,  and  promising  in  the  advancement  of 
the  masses,  the  moral  development  of  the  individual 
It  is  an  age  of  eager  and  rapid  discovery  in  the  Phys- 
ical Scieyices.  The  laws  and  uses  of  matter  receive 
profound  investigation,  and  each  day  are  practically 
applied  with  some  new  success.  But  some  of  the 
philosophers  thus  busied  about  the  material  world, 
seem  to  think  that  the  world  of  mind  is  virtually  a 
nonentity.  As  G-eology  scratches  the  rind  of  our 
globe,  some  are  hoping  to  dig  up  and  fling  out  before 
the  nations  a  contradiction  to  the  oracles  of  the  earth's 
Creator ;  and  to  find  a  birth-mark  on  the  creature 
that  shall  impeach  the  truth  of  its  Maker's  registers 
as  to  its  age  and   history.     Others,  in  the  strides  of 


22  RELIGIOUS     PROGRESS. 

Astronomy  along  her  star-paved  way,  hope  to  see  her 
travel  beyond  the  eye  of  the  Hebrew  Jehovah,  and 
bringing  back  from  her  far  journey  a  denial  of  the 
word  that  His  lips  have  uttered.  Yet  Physical  Sci- 
ence can  certainly  neither  create  nor  replace  Moral 
Truth.  The  crucible  of  the  chemist  cannot  disin- 
tegrate the  human  soul,  or  evaporate  the  Moral  Law. 
The  Decalogue,  and  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount ;  Con- 
science and  Sin  ;  the  superhuman  majesty  and  purity 
of  Christ ;  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  the  Mercy  Seat,  would 
remain,  even  if  a  new  Cuvier  and  another  Newton 
should  arise,  to  carry  far  higher  and  to  sink  far 
deeper,  than  it  has  ever  yet  done,  the  line  of  human 
research  ;  and  even  if  these  new  masters  of  physical  lore 
should  blaspheme  where  the  older  teachers  may  have 
adored.  Some  claim  that  Revelation  must  be  recast, 
to  meet  the  advances  in  Natural  Science.  They  over- 
look the  true  limitations,  as  to  the  power  and  pre- 
rogatives of  mere  Material  Knowledge.  And  what  are 
the  new  and  loftier  views  of  man's  origin  and  destiny 
which  these  reformers  propose  to  substitute  for  those 
views  which  they  would  abolish  ?  On  the  basis  of  a  few 
hardy  generalizations  upon  imaginary  or  distorted  facts, 
and  by  the  aid  of  some  ingenious  assumptions,  a  sys- 
tem is  excogitated  that  is  to  strip  the  race  of  immortal- 
ity, conscience  and  accountability  ;  and  that  represents 
us  as  but  a  development  of  the  ape,  to  be  one  day  su- 
perseded by  some  being  of  yet  nobler  developments  than 
our  own,  and  who  will  have  the  right  to  rule  and  kill 
us,  as  we  now  rule  and  kill  the  beasts  of  the  forest. 
And    is   it   thus,    that   Philosophy  reforms  upon  the 


RELIGION    A    P  R  I  N  C  I  P  L  R    OF    GROWTH.  23 

Bible  ?  No — in  the  endeavor  to  out-grow  Revelation, 
it  has  but  succeeded  in  out-growing  reason  and  bruti- 
fying  humanity.  No — let  science  perfect  yet  more 
her  telescopes,  and  make  taller  her  observatories,  and 
deeper  her  mines,  and  more  searching  her  crucibles ; 
all  will  not  undermine  Jehovah's  throne,  or  sweep  out 
of  the  moral  heavens  the  great  star-like  truths  of 
Revelation,  and  least  of  all  the  Sun  of  Righteousness. 
God's  omniscience  is  never  to  be  ultimately  brought 
down  to,  and  schooled  by  man's  nescience,  as  its  last 
standard  and  test.  The  last  and  greatest  of  the 
world's  scholars  will,  we  doubt  not,  be  among  the 
lowliest  worshippers,  and  the  loudest  heralds  of  the 
crucified  Nazarene.  The  gospel  is  true — true  in- 
tensely, entirely  and  eternally :  and  all  other  and  in- 
ferior truth,  as  it  shall  be  more  patiently  and  thorough- 
ly evolved,  will  assume  its  due  place  and  proportion, 
as  buttressing  and  exalting  the  grgat,  pervading,  con- 
trolling and  incarnate  Truth — Christ  the  Maker,  the 
Sovereign,  the  Upholder,  and  the  Judge,  no  less  than 
the  Redeemer  of  the  world. 

Bat  besides  these  advances  in  physical  science,  our 
age  is  one  of  wondrous  political  revolutions.  Beside 
the  oldest  thrones  of  Europe,  where  successive  genera- 
tions had  slept  in  contented  bondage,  kissing  and  gild- 
ing their  hereditary  fetters,  the  cry  of  Progress,  and 
Change  and  Freedom  has  been  raised.  Is  the  de- 
liverance promised  now  to  be  won,  or  to  be  again 
baffled,  and  yet  to  be  long  delayed  ?  The  belitiver  ex- 
pected change,  long  before  the  political  agitator  pro- 
claimed it ;  and  continues  patiently  to  await  it,  long 


24  RELIGIOUS    PROGRESS. 

after  the  foiled  revolutionist  may  have  despaired  of  iti 
coming.  The  Christian  has  seen  in  the  Bible  of  his  God 
the  pledge  of  a  Millennium.  He  has  read  in  the  sure 
omens  and  thick-coming  tokens  of  G-od's  providence,  the 
signs  of  its  gradual  march  of  approach,  often  most  rapid 
where  most  noiseless.  And  in  this  age  of  political  agita- 
tion, of  seething  eagerness,  and  of  tumultuous  and  an- 
archical hope,  should  not  the  gospel  be  announced  with 
new  boldness,  and  embraced  with  greater  tenacity  by 
all  those  who  have  long  known  it  ?  For  that  gospel 
proclaims  the  great  principle,  so  reasonable,  so  right- 
eous, and  yet  so  generally  overlooked,  that  to  precede 
and  sustain  national  progress,  there  must  be  in- 
dividual progress, — and  that,  to  give  it  permanence 
and  worth,  a  moral  change  must  underlie  the  civil 
and  social  change.  Need  it  be  again  wrought  out  to 
a  dreadful  and  bloody  demonstration, — that  truth — so 
often  and  cruelly  illustrated  in  the  history  of  revolu- 
tions, that 

■'  The  bad  rebel,  but  never  can  be  free  ;" 

that  a  sinner  must  by  G-od's  grace  subdue  himself  and 
his  own  corruptions,  to  obtain  the  subjugation  of  his 
worst  tyrants  ; — that  the  truest  and  most  brutish  serf- 
dom is  the  bondage  of  evil  principles  and  unholy 
habits,  or  that  very  "  rehabilitation  of  the  senses,"  in 
which,  some  in  the  old  world,  "  filthy  dreamers,  defil- 
ing the  flesh,"*  have  proclaimed,  as  the  hope  of  the 
race,  what  would  be  really  the  carnival  of  hell  ?  A 
nation,  who  are  all  drudges  and  dupes  of  Satan,  can- 
*  Jude  8. 


RELIGION    A     PKIiNClPLE    OF    GROWTH.  25 

not  be  a  nation  of  patriots  and  freemen.  The  salt 
necessary  to  preserve  a  people  from  moral  putridity  is 
lacking  in  them.  Conscience, — relieved  from  the 
guilt  and  dominion  of  Sin,  under  the  sprinkled  blood 
of  the  Redeemer,  and  the  regeneration  of  the  Holy 
Ghost,  the  Renewer, — is  to  become,  when  thus  itself 
emancipated,  the  grand  emancipator  of  the  nations, 
supplying  to  them  alike  the  needful  impulse,  and  the 
necessary  restraints  Citizens  would  men  be,  and  not 
serfs  ?  Citizens  let  them  be  ;  yet  let  them  recollect 
that  the  citizen  as  well  as  the  serf  is  a  mortal  and  a 
sinner,  and  needs  an  atonement  with  pardon  for  his 
guilt,  a  Comforter  with  solace  for  his  inevitable  woes, 
and  a  resurrection  ministering  peace  to  his  death-bed, 
and  assuring  a  good  hope  for  his  eternity  beyond  the 
tomb.  Let  states,  and  the  helmsmen  of  states  re- 
member, that  there  is  a  governor  on  high,  "  higher 
than  they,"  no  despot  and  no  changeling,  whose  law 
they  must  ponder  and  obey,  for  it  overrides  their  legis- 
lation, and  whose  sovereign  favor  they  must  invoke  ;  or 
else  their  freedom  is  an  unblest  impossibility, — impos- 
sible even  were  it  to  such  godless  states  a  blessing,  and 
unblest  even  were  it  to  such  godless  states  a  possibility. 
It  is  again,  even  in  lands  and  governments  where 
political  revolution  is  not  needed  or  is  not  desired,  an 
age  of  social  reform.  And  in  such  a  time,  when  the 
operatives,  the  proletary  class,  to  use  a  word  of 
French  thinkers,  the  men  living  on  the  day's  wages, 
the  laborious  and  the  begrimed,  the  doers  of  hard  and 
honest  work,  are  crying  out  because  of  the  long  neg- 
lect  and   cruel   oppression    which  they  deem  them- 

2 


26  RELIGIOUS     PROGRESS. 

selves  to  have  endured  on  the  part  of  their  richei 
brethren, — is  it  not  especially  the  season,  when  alike 
all   those  who    seek    and    all  those    who  dread  such 

hanges,  should  study,  in  the  scriptures  emanating 
from  the  Former  and  Ruler  of  Society,  man's  duties 
to  man,  and  his  obligations  to  his  &od  ?     The  law  of 

lUman  brotherhood  is  there  illustrated  as  no  where 
else,  spread  as  it  is  not  only  over  Christ's  teachings, 
but  enforced  and  exemplified  by  Christ's  sacrifice. 
There  we  see  how  the  most  radical  of  all  reforms  is 
also  the  most  quiet  and  the  most  accessible  to  us  all. 
It  is  the  most  radical,  for  it  alters,  to  the  inmost  cen- 
tre and  to  the  outermost  circumference,  our  relations 
to  ourselves  and  to  our  race,  to  the  universe,  to  eter- 
nity and  to  God.  It  is  the  most  quiet,  because  it 
comes  not  with  garments  rolled  in  blood  and  the  con- 
fused noise  of  the  battle-field,  but  in  the  depths  of  the 
heart  and  with  the  still,  small  voice  of  Grod's  Spirit, 
**  not  by  might  nor  by  power,  but  by  my  Spirit,  saith 
the  Lord  of  Hosts."  It  is  the  most  accessible,  for  it 
waits  not  for  the  will  of  majorities,  the  success 
of  some  favorite  candidate,  or  the  action  of  some  busy 
cabal ;  it  stays  not  for  protocol  or  senate,  or  cabinet, 
but  in  the  solitude  of  our  own  closets,  and  in  the 
secrecy  of  our  own  bosoms,  it  does  its  lonely,  personal 
and  uncontrollable  work.  It  is  the  reform  of  our  own 
individual  lives,  as  growing  out  of  a  change  sought  at 
Christ's  feet,  and  from  God's  almighty  grace,  and  by 
the  energy  of  His  renewing  Spirit,  in  our  own  in- 
dividual hearts.  A  freedom  thus  won,  what  tyran- 
nous invader   shall  ever  reconquer  ?     A  constitution 


RELIGION    A    PRINCIPLE    OF    GROWTH.  27 

and  legislation,  revealed  in  the  Divine  Scriptures  from 
heaven  above,  and  accepted  and  retranscribed  in  the 
heart  of  the  regenerate  convert  on  earth,  secures  his 
gravest  interests  beyond  the  reach  of  all  sublunary 
revolutions  and  mischances.  Thus  reformed  and  ele- 
vated, we  shall  not  cherish  extravagant  expectations 
from  the  earth,  or  from  the  laws  or  societies  of  earth  ; 
nor  yet,  whilst  that  God  rules,  shall  we  ever,  in  the 
darkest  era,  despair  unduly  of  amelioration  in  those 
laws  and  of  advancemement  for  those  societies. 
Then,  we  shall  know  at  once  the  dignity  of  Christ's 
freedmen,  and  the  loyalty  of  Christ's  servants ;  and 
long,  with  a  passionate  affection,  to  make  our  breth- 
ren, however  .un amiable  or  brutified,  the  willing 
sharers  of  our  blessed  submission,  and  the  eternal  par- 
ticipants of  our  unspeakable  immunities.  But,  under 
the  lessons  of  this  school,  earthly  liberty  and  property 
will  be  seen  to  have  their  duties  quite  as  much  as 
their  privileges.  Stewardship  to  heaven,  and  Irater- 
nal  sympathy  for  the  race,  will  be  seen  graven  on 
each  charter  of  national  emancipation,  and  on  each 
distinguishing  boon  of  our  personal  allotment.  Then 
too,  instead  of  resembling  children,  who  think  with 
their  feet  to  reach,  and  with  their  hands  to  touch,  the 
far  rainbow  and  the  ever-receding  horizon,  we  shall 
find  our  S-aviour's  instructions  giving  us  just  and 
limited  hopes,  far  as  earth  and  man  are  concerned, 
and  transferring  for  us  to  eternity  and  to  heaven  those 
desires  and  anticipations  which  nought  but  eternity 
and  heaven  cian  truly  satisfy.  There  will  be  social  pro- 
gress, then ;  but  it  will  be  sober,  and  considerate,  and 


28  R  E  L I  (J  1  o  r  y    r  ii  o  g  r  e  s  s. 

sell-restrained. ;  not  demanding  the  impossible,  and 
not  frettinc;  at  and  fio^htins:  a^rainst  the  inevitable. 
Sickness,  Want  and  Sorrow,  what  political  revolution, 
or  what  social  reform  shall  ever  utterly  obliterate, 
even  in  the  case  of  the  richest  of  mortals,  until  Christ 
come  again  ?  And  if  Christ  be  ours,  then  earth's  ills, 
transient  and  disciplinary,  shall  be  transmuted  into 
blessings.  They  shall  furnish  the  crucible  that  is  to 
separate  and  purge  away  our  dross  ;  and  will  leave  the 
gold  to  which  that  dross  once  so  closely  adhered,  the 
brighter  from  the  keen,  brief  flame  that  tried  it,  and 
the  fitter  for  the  service  of  that  upper  sanctuary,  to 
which  death  shall  soon  transfer  it. 

3.  And  now,  having  seen,  how  in  the  aspects,  both 
secular  and  ecclesiastical,  of  our  age,  Christians  wer", 
especially  summoned  to  remember  and  evolve  what  of 
progression  there  was  in  their  own  faith,  let  us  see 
how,  in  the  inspired  presentations  of  that  faith,  the 
fullest  provision  is  made  for  man's  moral  growth,  and 
perpetual  elevation,  alike  when  considered  in  his  own 
personal  isolation,  and  when  regarded  as  a  member  of 
the  communities  of  earth,  or  of  that  eternity  and  uni- 
verse lying  beyond  earth's  narrow  horizon. 

Were  there  no  other  precept  of  that  tenor,  the  single 
utterance  of  our  God  :  "  Be  ye  therefore  perfect,  even 
as  your  Father  which  is  in  heaven  is  perfect,"*  would 
be  sufficient  to  show  how  a  limitless  growth  and  ex- 
pansion of  our  intellectual  and  moral  stature  was  set 
before  us  in  the  gospel.  That  utterance  was  a  pare 
of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  The  morality  there 
*  Matt.  V.  48. 


RELIGION    A    PRINCIPLE    OF    GROWTH.  29 

taught,  and  which  has  smitten  infidels  with  admira- 
tion, goes  beyond — far  beyond — that  temporal  and  sec- 
ular order  to  which  they  would  limit  it.  To  man,  the 
heir  of  immortality,  it  prescribes  the  law,  and  war- 
rants the  hope,  of  an  immortal  progression  ; — a  pro- 
gression of  which  time  is  but  the  starting-point,  and 
eternity  the  long  career,  and  (jod,  the  unreached  and 
ever-ascending  goal  of  its  endless  and  jubilant  ascent. 
The  mistakes  and  crude  hopes  of  the  irreligious, 
and  the  peculiar  dangers  and  duties  environing  the  re- 
ligious men  and  women  of  our  times,  should  alike  en- 
force this  great  principle.  It  is  written,  again  and 
again,  over  the  New  Testament.  The  chief  Master 
and  Apostle  of  our  profession  prayed  for  his  people 
that  his  joy  might  remain  in  them,  and  that  their  joy 
might  be  full,  in  keeping  his  commandments,  and  that 
thus  their  Father  and  His  Father  might  be  glorified, 
in  their  "  bearing  ml'ch  fruit."*  Sanctified  for  their 
sake,  He  prayed  "that  they  also  might  be  sanctified 
through  the  truth."*  Complete  and  final  as  was 
their  justification,  when  once  believing  in  Him,  whose 
sacrifice  and  work  made  an  end  of  sin,  and  brought  in 
an  everlasting  righteousness ;  their  sanctification  was 
but  initial,  and  was  to  continue  progressive,  ascend- 
ing from  grace  to  grace,  and  even  when  culminating 
in  the  invisible  glory,  it  was  even  there  to  know 
through  the  long  lapse  of  eternity  an  intenser  glow  of 
love,  and  to  scan  a  widening  horizon  of  knowledge, 
and  to  evolve  a  higher  grade  of  holiness,  as  the  dread, 
glad  perfection  of  their  Father  God  loomed  on  them 

*  John  XV.  and  xviL 


30  RELIGIOUS     PROGRESS. 

more  vastly,  and  shone  on  them  more  nearly  and 
more  clearly.  And,  in  the  light  of  his  great  Master's 
lessons,  counting  himself  not  to  have  attained,  but 
struggling  onward  to  apprehend  that  for  which  also  he 
was  apprehended  and  converted  of  his  God,  Paul 
bade  Christians  go  onward  and  forward  to  perfection, 
and  leaving  the  nursery,  and  its  pattering  by  rote  of 
elementary  truths,  he  bade  them  proceed  to  the 
studies  and  attainments  of  a  vigorous  maturity  in 
truth  and  holiness.  So,  he  elsewhere  compares  the 
Christian  to  a  vessel  meet  for  the  Master's  use,  only 
as  it  is  properly  kept,  purged,  and  adorned.  Now  in 
the  preparation  of  the  vessels  of  the  old  sanctuary, 
there  were  stages  of  advance.  The  mould  was  pre- 
pared ;  the  ore  was  dug,  broken,  and  sifted  and  mol- 
ten ;  and  the  vessel,  when  cast,  was  chased  by  the 
graver's  tool,  and  burnished,  and  oftentimes  cleansed. 
The  casting  of  the  soul  by  faith  into  the  mould  of 
Christ  and  into  the  great  doctrine  of  His  atonement 
now  justifies  the  character  of  the  true  disciple,  as 
really  gold  of  the  sanctuary.  But  many  a  lesson,  and 
many  a  trial,  are  needed,  in  the  way  of  sanctification, 
to  prove,  for  that  soul,  its  adaptation  and  meetness,  as 
a  vessel  for  the  Master's  use,  in  His  lower  and  in  His 
higher  courts,  as  an  urn  or  a  censer,  in  which  to  store 
the  manna  of  His  testimonies,  and  to  bear  the  flaming 
incense  of  His  acceptable  worship.  There  are  stages 
in  Christian  attainment ;  and  one  but  prepares  for  an- 
other, and,  without  all,  the  Christian  cannot  be  fully 
useful  or  perfectly  blessed.  And  similar  to  Paul's 
teachings,  is  the  teaching,  in  our  text,  of  his  fellow 


RELIGION     A     PRINCIPLE     OF     GROW  Til.  31 

apostle,  Peter.  He  sets  before  the  astounded  convert 
the  high  aim,  and  the  large  boon,  of  "  all  things  that 
pertain  unto  life  antl  godliness,"  and  of  beeoming 
"partaker  of  the  divine  nature," — not  surely,  in 
aspiration  after  an  equality  with  its  incommunicable 
Deity  ; — nor  in  Pantheistic,  Boodhist  absorption  into 
its  substance  and  Unity:  but,  in  moral  sympathy  with, 
and  ever-growing  assimilation  to  its  holiness;  and  in  the 
enlarged  participation  of  its  informing  Spirit ;  and  in 
still  loftier  exultation  over  its  universal  and  inde- 
feasible Sovereignty.  Then,  having  fixed  the  shrink- 
ing eye  of  the  abashed  and  self-condemning  worship- 
per on  this  blaze  of  insufferable  brightness,  as  his 
Teacher  and  Pattern,  his  Light  and  Life,  the  apostle 
shuns,  as  no  uninspired  teacher  could,  what  seems 
next  an  irretrievable  fall  into  the  lowest  bathos,  in 
his  descent  from  the  Throne  thus  surveyed,  to  the 
Footstool,  where  the  convert  is  for  the  time  to  labor 
and  serve.  He  accomplishes  the  transition,  by  un- 
rolling a?  it  were  from  the  feet  and  under  the  eye 
of  that  High  Teacher,  the  life-long  lesson  for  earth 
and  for  eternity,  of  each  scholai  in  Christ's  heavenly 
school.  Having  counteracted  the  awe  that  might 
crush  the  learner's  spirit,  by  the  grace  that  won  and 
raised  it,  ^'  whereby  are  given  unto  us  exceeding 
great  and  precious  promises,  that  by  these  ye  might 
be  partakers  of  the  divine  nature  ;"  and  having  stated 
their  effect  on  the  believing  recipient,  who  by  them 
will  "  escape  the  corrnplion  that  is  in  the  world 
through  lust ;"  he,  once,  the  fisherman  of  the  Gal- 
ilean lake,  little  conversant,  we  should  suppose,  with 


no 


RELIGIOUS     PROGRESS. 


themes  bigh,  and  vast,  and  spiritual,  launches  out 
into  a  description  of  moral  symmetry  and  spiritual  ex- 
cellence, such  as  no  sage  of  G-reek  or  Oriental  fame, 
and  no  Doctor  of  his  own  national  ^nhedrim,  ever 
even  approached.  The  hand,  once  wont  to  grasp  the 
clammy  meshes  of  his  net,  or  to  scrape  the  scales  from 
his  finny  prey,  now  guided  in  its  use  of  the  style,  by 
God's  own  wisdom,  engraves  for  all  the  churches  of 
all  succeeding  time  this  charge  :  "  And  beside  this," 
(as  if,  what  had  gone  before  were  not  large  enough, 
and  lofty  enough,  to  blind  the  eye  with  excess  of  light, 
and  overwhelm  the  panting,  toiling  intellect) — "  be- 
side this,  giving  all  diligence,"  (with  no  delay,  with 
no  drowsy  effort,  or  half-hearted  resolve,  but  in  all 
promptitude,  and  with  all  energy,  by  every  method, 
and  with  a  relentless  perseverance,  undismayed,  un- 
baffled,  and  untiring,)  ^^  giving  all  diligence,  add  to 
yovr  faith  virtue  ;  and  to  virtue  knowledge  ;  and  to 
knowledge  temperance  ;  and  to  temperance  patience  ; 
and  to  patience  godliness  ;  and  to  godliness  brotherly 
kindness  ;  and  to  brotherly  kindness  charity.'''  And 
to  this  inventory  of  man's  moral  glory,  fetched  from 
God's  throne  and  grace,  he  attaches  the  argument 
from  gratitude,  as  due  towards  the  Lord  bestowing 
them  :  "  For  if  these  things  be  in  you  and  abound, 
they  make  you  that  ye  shall  neither  be  barren  nor  un- 
fruitful in  the  knowledge  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ." 
And  to  this  he  attaches  the  argument  from  shame,  or 
the  reproach  else  to  be  incurred  of  ignorance,  forge t- 
fulness  and  blindness :  "  But  he  that  lacketh  these 
things  is  blind,  and  cannot  see  afar  off,  and  hath  for- 


RElilGION     A    PRINCIPLE    OF    GROWTH.  33 

gotten  that  he  was  purged  from  his  old  sins.^^  And 
to  this  ho  attaches  the  argument  from  danger,  and 
having  before  flung  back  the  veil  from  the  face  of  the 
Supreme  Throne,  he  tears  now  the  covering  from  the 
mouth  of  the  flaming  pit,  which  awaits  the  plunge  of 
the  apostate :  "  Wherefore  the  rather,  brethren,  give 
diligence  to  make  your  calling  and  election  sure: 
for  if  ye  do  these  things  ye  shall  never  fall." 
And  then  to  the  arguments  from  gratitude,  and  from 
shame,  and  from  danger,  he  appends,  as  the  triumph- 
ant climax,  the  argument  from  hope:  "  For  so  an  en- 
trance shall  be  ministered  unto  you  abundantly  into 
the  everlasting  kingdom  of  our  Lord  and  Saviour 
Jesus  Christy 

4.  And  passing  from  the  context,  the  peculiar 
phraseology  of  the  text  itself  intimates  the  same  great 
lesson.  From  the  word  "  add,"  a  heedless  reader 
might  infer,  that  all  the  graces  thus  clustered  were  in- 
dependent each  of  the  other,  and  might  be  selected  or 
omitted  as  each  disciple  saw  fit;  and  that  a  man 
might  at  least  be  safe  in  having  but  the  first,  though 
in  his  negligence  lacking  all  the  rest.  But  such  is 
not  the  apostle's  meaning.  The  word  rendered  in  our 
excellent  version,  "  add,"  is,  as  scholars  tell  us,  a  pe- 
culiar one,  having  no  term  in  our  own  language  that 
is  its  exact  antitype  and  correlative.  The  Greeks,  the 
people  whose  language  God  saw  fit  to  employ  in  the 
New  Testament,  were  accustomed  in  the  solemn  spec- 
tacles of  their  republics  to  employ  choirs,  of  trained 
artists,  numerous  and  costly.  It  was  one  of  the 
honorable  burdens,  imposed  at  times  upon  some  opu- 


84  RELIGIOUS    PROGRESS. 

lent  private  citizen,  that  lie  should,  as  the  offering  and 
expression  of  his  patriotism,  furnish  or  supply,  to  the 
magnificent  shows  of  the  state,  these  choirs  at  his 
own  personal  expense,  hiring  himself  the  musicians 
and  others  who  composed  the  choir.  The  word  de- 
rived from  this  custom,  and  which  represented  one 
so  gratuitously  contributing  or  ministering  a  band,  or 
harmotiious  troop,  is  the  term  used  both  by  Paul  and 
by  Peter,  in  the  sense  of  minister,  or  furnish.  It  re- 
appears in  this  same  chapter,  at  the  eleventh  verse, 
where  the  disciple  is  encouraged  with  the  prospect  of 
an  abundant  entrance  at  death  into  Grod's  king- 
dom, being  ^^ ministered"  unto  him;  or  that  Grod 
would  "  add"  to  him  the  full  company  of  benefits 
and  joys  that  went  to  make  a  triumphant  outgate 
from  earth,  and  a  magnificent  entrance  into  Paradise. 
And  in  the  text  now  before  us,  the  older  English 
translators,  Wycliffe,  and  the  martyr  Tyndal,  and  the 
martyr  Cranmer,  in  their  several  versions  have  here, 
also,  the  word  "  minister,"  where  our  majestic,  re- 
ceived version  has  put  "  add."  Neither  term,  as  we 
have  said,  nor  any  other  single  word  supplied  by  our 
tongue,  can  reproduce  the  idea  of  the  original  Greek. 
As  recurring  here,  it  implies  that  the  believer  is  called 
upon  to  furnish  not  a  single  and  isolated  grace,  but  to 
supply,  "  adding"  one  to  another,  the  whole  consent- 
ing train,  and  harmonious,  interwoven  troop,  the 
complete,  sisterly  choir  of  Christian  graces.  He  is  to 
look  upon  the  one  in  this  cluster  of  Christian  ex- 
cellencies, as  fragmentary  and  untuned  without  the 
others.     The  one  grace  is  the  supplement  and  comple- 


RELIGION    A    PRINCIPLE    OF     GROWTH.  35 

ment,  indispensable  to  the  symmetry  and  melody  of 
all  its  sister  graces. 

Now  in  this  choir  or  train,  Faith  is  the  elder  born, 
and  upon  it  all  these  other  graces  depend.  It  alone 
justifies,  but  as  the  old  theologians  were  fond  of  say- 
ing, not  being-  alone.  It  comes  singly  to  the  task  of 
man's  justification,  but  in  the  heart  and  life  of  the  jus- 
tified man,  it  does  not  come  as  a  solitary,  building 
there  its  lonely  hermitage.  Faith  enters  there  rather, 
as  came  Miriam  when  leading  at  the  Red  Sea  the  ex- 
ultant songs  of  her  Hebrew  sisters  ;  and  a  whole  troop 
comes  up  at  her  feet :  and  whilst  at  the  bar  of  G-od's 
law,  when  righteousness  is  demanded,  she  answers 
alone,  and  her  plea  is  but  one  word,  "  Christ  ;"  into 
the  earthly  church  and  into  the  general  assembly  of 
heaven,  she  walks  not  unattended,  but  every  other 
grace  of  the  regenerate  comes  with  her,  bearing  her 
train,  and  attesting  her  kingly  descent  from  Grod. 
When,  then,  the  apostle  bids  us  "  adcr'  to  this  faith, 
his  intent  is  not  that  Faith  is  properly,  in  its  concret-e 
existence  in  the  human  heart  as  renewed  by  divine 
grace,  an  isolated  principle,  divisible  from  Virtue,  or 
from  Charity,  afterwards  enumerated.  Where  the ^st 
are  utterly  absent,  Faith  is  unreal.  The  addition  meant 
is  not  the  mechanical  superposition  of  one  on  the  other, 
as  the  miser  adds  coin  to  coin,  each  distinct  from  the 
other,  and  every  one  perfect  and  complete  apart ;  or  as 
the  architect  adds  stone  to  stone  in  his  edifice,  each 
now  block  having  no  necessary  aflinity  with  those 
upon  which  it  is  laid.  But  we  are  to  supplement  the 
one  grace  of  Christianity  with  the  other,  as  one  voice 


36  RELIGIOUS     PROGRESS. 

or  performer  in  the  trained  choir  requires  the  aid  and 
addition  of  others,  or,  as  the  seed  cast  into  the  good 
soil,  and  drinking  gladly  the  dew,  and  rain,  and  airs 
of  heaven,  adds  to  itself  the  root,  and  to  the  root  adds 
the  stem,  and  to  the  stem  superadds  the  branches ; 
and  then,  naturally  and  by  necessary  growth,  these 
branches  are  crowned  with  the  twig  and  the  leaflet, 
and  the  blossom,  and  the  full-formed  fruit :  and  then 
each  part  in  that  living  choir,  from  the  lowest  root 
that  buries  itself  below  the  sod,  to  the  topmost  leaf 
that  quivers  in  the  sunbeam,  bears  its  share  in  the 
symmetrical  life  of  the  tree,  and  in  showing  forth  the 
high  praises  of  the  God  who  planted,  developed,  and 
united  that  verdant  and  waving  monument  of  His 
skill.  Religious  life  is,  thus  considered,  the  out- 
growth from  faith  implanted  in  the  soul.  True  prog- 
ress is  but  the  natural  efflorescence,  the  budding  and 
blossoming  of  a  living  belief  of  Grod's  truth,  as  mani- 
fest in  the  various  fruits  of  the  Spirit,  in  benevolence 
towards  man,  and  piety  towards  G-od,  in  usefulness  on 
earth,  and  meetness  for  heaven. 


LECTURE  II. 

FAITH    THE    ROOT    OF    CHRISTIAN    LIFR 

."  ADD   TO   YOnR    FAITH " 

2  Peur,  i.  i. 

When  the  Vatican  issued  the  celebrated  Bull  Uni- 
genitus,  the  occasion  of  so  many  scandals,  and  of  such 
fierce  and  protracted  controversy,  and  in  which  it  con- 
demned, as  abounding  with  most  portentous  errors, 
the  excellent  commentary  upon  the  New  Testament 
of  the  pious  Father  Quesnel,  it  selected  as  one  of 
those  errors,  a  remark  of  the  good  Jansenist  upon 
the  chapter  before  us,  that  "  Faith  is  the  first  of 
graces,  and  the  source  of  every  others*  And  yet 
what  else  than  this  very  sentiment  does  the  language 
of  the  apostle  here  suggest  ?  Faith  is  put  by  him 
first  in  order ;  and  is  it  not  so  put  by  Peter's  Lord 
and  Master,  the  chief  Apostle  and  Bishop  of  our 
profession  ?  Has  not  our  Saviour  explicitly  made  the 
presence  of  faith  the  warrant  of  our  salvation,  and  the 
absence  of  it  the-  seal  of  our  perdition  ?  "  He  that 
believeth  on  the  Son  hath  everlasting  life;  and 
he  that  believeth  not  the  Son  shall  not  see  life  ;  but 
the  wrath  of  God  abideth  on  him."t     And  with  the 

*  See  Appendix  A.  f  John,  ill  36. 


38  RELIGIOUS     PROGRESS. 

high  importance  thus  assigned  to  Faith,  in  the  theory 
of  religion,  considered  as  a  system  of  doctrines,  tallies 
the  effect  and  power,  in  practice,  of  its  presentation  to 
the  world,  as  the  hinge  of  the  sinner's  justification  o 
condemnation.  The  Reformers  gave  it  this  cardinal 
place  and  authority,  and  announcing  to  the  startled 
nations  the  forgotten  but  primitive  truth  of  .Justifica- 
tion by  Faith,  the  vast  and  deeply-rooted  fabric  oi  the 
Papacy  vibrated  to  its  inmost  centre  at  the  shock  of 
their  testimony.  Our  Protestant  Missionaries  preach 
it.  To  some  speculative  minds  at  home,  it  might 
seein  but  a  metaphysical  abstraction,  which  many  of 
the  Pagans  are  too  ignorant  and  besotted  to  under- 
stand, much  less  to  value.  But  how  has  it  seemed  to 
create  an  intelligence  it  had  not  found,  and  in  how 
many  a  tribe  has  the  heathen  abjured,  at  this  sound, 
his  brutishness,  and  his  idolatry,  and  his  cannibali.sm. 
Its  old  miracles  of  power,  and  of  moral  exorcism,  are 
repeated  in  our  own  times,  and  as  it  were  beneath  our 
very  eyes.  Nay,  in  your  own  hearts,  have  not  many 
of  you  found  its  wondrous  energy,  to  awaken  hope, 
and  yet  to  enkindle  penitence ;  and  are  you  not  your- 
selves the  monuments  that  this  principle  it  was,  which 
first  broke  within  you  the  dominion  of  sin,  and  the 
yoke  of  Satan,  and  whilst  it  taught  you  to  build  every 
plea  on  the  grace  of  Christ  Jesus,  you  found  in  that 
grace  the  bond  of  Duty  strengthened  within  you,  and 
fastened  upon  you,  as  the  law,  apart  from  faith  in 
Christ,  could  never  do  it  ? 

Of  the  principle,  thus  claiming  the  first  rank  in  the 
earliest  and  in  these  latest  teachings  of  the  churches 


FAITH    THE    ROOT    OF    CHRISTIAN    LIFE.  39 

of  Christ,  and  thus  mighty  in  its  influence,  let  us  in- 
quire : 

I.  What  is  this  Faith  ; 

II.  Why  it  has  assigned  it,  this  priority  in  the 
Christian  system ;  and 

III.  How,  from  the  necessity  of  its  nature,  it  be- 
comes a  root  of  spiritual  growth,  and  practical  devel- 
opment. 

I.  Faith  is  not,  then,  the  mere  hereditary  and  pas- 
sive acquiescence  in  Christianity  as  the  religion  of  our 
country  and  of  our  forefathers.  Nor  is  it  a  reception 
into  the  intellect  merely,  apart  from  the  heart,  of  any 
creed  however  orthodox.  Nor  is  it  a  mere  enthusias- 
tic persuasion,  without  scriptural  evidence,  and  un- 
sustained  by  the  warrant  and  witness  of  the  Holy 
Ghost,  that  God  loves  us  personally.  Nor  is  it,  as  the 
enemies  of  religion  would  persuade  you,  a  blind, 
bigoted  credulity,  the  creature  and  retainer  of  Priest- 
craft. The  faith  revealed  in  the  Bible,  in  its  tendency 
to  sever  from  all  human  merits,  and  intercessors — 
from  all  earthly  sacrifices  and  priesthoods — and  to 
shut  the  soul  up  to  a  direct  and  personal  appeal  to 
Christ,  and  to  an  exclusive  reliance  upon  the  cross ; — 
and  the  Bible  enjoining  that  faith,  as  the  one  con- 
dition and  term  of  salvation  ; — that  faith  and  that 
Bible,  we  say,  are  the  fellest  and  sternest  foes  of 
Priestcraft  which  the  world  has  ever  seen. 

Faith,  in   its  widest  sense,  is  trust  or  belief;  confi 
dence  in  the    word,    character    or    work    of   another. 
Though  requisite  in  religion,  it  is  as  much  requisite 
elsewhere.     Human  society  in  its  whole  framework  is 


40  RELIGIOUS     PROGRESS, 

SO  held  together ;  and  the  kindreds,  and  amusennents, 
and  business  of  the  world,  are  presenting  to  the  most 
earthly-minded,  continual  images  and  intimations  of 
that  faith,  which,  when  demanded  of  him  by  the 
church  and  by  the  "Word  of  God,  he  may  sometimes 
affect  to  regard  as  strange  and  unexampled.  The 
generous  confidence  of  soldiers  in  a  tried  and  heroic 
leader,  that  enables  them,  in  his  company,  to  dare,  at 
immense  odds,  all  peril,  and  to  pluck  victory  out  of 
the  teeth  of  death ; — the  implicit  confidence  of  his 
correspondents  in  a  merchant  of  known  means,  and  of 
proved  integrity  and  sagacity,  bidding  them  set  a  for- 
tune afloat  on  the  credit  of  his  mere  signature ; — the 
trust  of  the  voyager  in  the  intelligence  and  vigilance 
of  the  navigator,  to  whose  keel  he  commits  his  estate, 
and  family,  and  life  ; — the  unshaken  assurance  of  a 
friend  in  the  worth  and  affection  of  one  whom  he  has 
long  known  and  intimately  loved ; — and  the  quiet, 
serene  and  rooted  trust  of  a  wife  or  a  child,  in  the 
husband  or  the  parent  to  whom  for  years  they  have 
looked,  and  never  looked  in  vain: — these  are  all  but 
examples,  in  daily  recurrence,  of  the  use  and  the  need, 
of  the  sweetness  and  of  the  power,  of  a  reasonable 
faith  and  a  well-placed  trust. 

The  faith  of  the  gospel  is  something  more  than 
these,  only  as  being  trust  in  God.  It  is  trust,  as  to 
matters  of  higher  concernment,  and  upon  better  war- 
rant, and  in  a  Greater  and  Better  Being.  It  is  a  re- 
liance on  His  true  testimony.  It  is  not  irrational,  for 
it  has  overwhelming  evidence,  both  intrinsic  and  ex- 
trinsic, that  the  testimony  is  really  from  Him.     Yet 


FAITH    THE    ROOT    OF    CHRISTIAN    LIFE.         41 

much,  declared  and  revealed  by  this  Divine  testimony, 
may  jar  on  our  prejudices,  and  wound  our  pride  :  and 
is  received  as  true,  because  being  His  word,  it  must 
be  true.  If  we  received  at  His  lips  only  what  oar 
own  reason  could  first  have  predicted,  or  afterwards 
have  fully  explained  and  grasped,  it  would  be  vir- 
tually to  impeach  God's  testimony,  by  treating  Him 
as  we  treat  a  discredited  witness,  whose  word  we  re- 
ceive only  as  far  as  it  is  corroborated  by  other,  and  in- 
dependent testimony.  As  the  great  theme  of  this 
divine  testimony  is  Christ  Jesus,  the  Incarnation  of 
God  for  the  redemption  of  man,  Faith  cannot  truly 
receive  that  testimony  without  believing  on  Christ. 
That  Christ  true  faith  accepts  as  He,  in  this  volume 
of  His  testimony,  reveals  himself,  as  being  the 
God  no  less  than  the  man,  and  as  becoming  the  Sov- 
ereign no  less  than  the  Saviour  of  His  people.  The 
Socinian  denies  the  first ;  the  Antinomian  suppresses 
the  last  of  these  twin  truths.  But  true  faith  wel- 
comes all,  not  attempting  where  God  hath  joined  that 
man  should  put  asunder.  And  as  Christ  came  to  ele- 
vate and  free,  to  ransom  and  sanctify  His  subjects ; 
and  finally  to  bring  the  prisoners  of  Hell  into  the  pos- 
session of  the  immunities  and  joys  of  Paradise ;  and 
gives  even  here  the  earnest  of  these  eternal  benefits ; 
true  Faith,  even  for  this  present  life,  ennobles  and 
liberates  its  votaries  by  bestowing  upon  them  the  first 
instalments  of  their  coming  and  celestial  inheritance. 
Instead  of  its  being,  as  the  bigots  of  scepticism  (for 
Infidelity  has  its  blind  and  bitter  bigotry)  represent  it, 
a  bandage  for  the  eyes,  and  a  manacle  for  the  free 


42  RELIGIOUS     PROGRESS, 

hand  Faith  is  thus  really,  to  the  eyes  of  the  soul,  a  tele* 
scope  bringing  near  the  far  glories  of  Heaven  :  "  the 
evidence  of  things  not  seen,  and  the  substance  of 
things  hoped  for."  And  it  is,  to  the  hand,  a  clue 
leading  our  steps  out  of  the  mazy  dungeon  of  Sin,  and 
through  the  labyrinth  of  Earth.  It  is  a  magnet 
pointing  the  voyager  to  his  desired  haven;  the  char- 
ter, to  the  criminal,  of  an  undeserved  and  full  pardon  ; 
and  the  warranty  and  title  deed,  to  the  forlorn  and 
homeless  prodigal,  of  a  rich,  unfading  and  princely 
heritage,  and  of  his  welcome  to  a  recovered  home  and 
a  reconciled  Father.  Speaking,  as  does  this  divine 
testimony,  of  a  Renewing  Spirit  no  less  than  a  Re- 
deeming Son  of  God,  and  describing  as  this  word  does 
that  Spirit  as  witnessing  with  the  Scripture,  and  of 
Christ,  and  for  Christ,  to  the  prayerful  and  penitent 
learner,  Faith  receives  too  this  testimony,  and  finds 
that  Divine  Spirit,  aiding  and  answering  prayer,  ex- 
plaining and  applying  Scripture,  and  enabling  the  dis- 
ciple successfully  to  collate,  if  we  may  so  speak,  the 
parallel  passages  of  God's  record  in  the  written- 
volume,  and  of  God's  living  inscription  on  the  fleshly 
tablets  of  the  heart,  in  the  disciples'  own  conscience, 
and  experience,  and  history.  And  as  this  Faith  is 
trust  in  the  truth  of  the  ever  Truthful  God,  it  is  high- 
est wisdom  :  as  it  is  reliance  on  the  Omnipresent, 
the  Almighty,  and  the  Everlasting  Jehovah,  it  is  the 
surest,  the  only  safety.  Expelling  moral  death,  and 
becoming  the  inlet  and  channel  of  a  restored  inter 
course  with  the  Ever-living  God,  it  brings  life — eter^ 
nal  'ife. 


TAITH     THE     ROOT     OF     CHRISTIAN     LIFE.       43 

As  being  enwrought  by  the  Divine  Ppirif,  the  glory 
of  it  and  its  first  origin  belong  to  God,  the  Father  of 
Lights  and  author  of  every  good  and  perfect  gift. 
But  working,  as  that  Divine  ki^pirit  does,  upon  man 
not  as  mere  passive  matter,  but  as  an  active  and  in- 
telligent soul,  it  is  man's  act  under  God's  agency  : 
God  working  in  us  to  will  and  to  do,  of  his  own  good 
pleasure.  And  as  the  act  is  reasonable,  and  the  tes- 
timony trustworthy,  and  the  evidence  overwhelming, 
and  the  summons  universal,  our  failure  to  believe  is 
irrational  and  inexcusable.  Unbelief  is  our  sin  and 
our  ruin.  Contemplating  the  work  of  man's  salvation 
from  the  point,  whence  Paul  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Ro- 
mans regards  it ;  God's  effectual  calling,  and,  yet  be- 
fore that.  His  divine  foreknowledge  and  predestina- 
tion, go  before  that  Faith,  in  which  man  is  justified. 
"  For  whom  he  did  foreknow,  he  also  did  predestinate 
to  be  conformed  to  the  image  of  his  Son,  that  he 
might  be  the  first-born  among  many  brethren.  More- 
over, whom  he  did  predestinate,  them  he  also  called : 
and  whom  he  called,  them  he  also  jnstified.''''*  But 
considering  the  Christian  graces,  in  the  order  of  their 
implantation  and  manifestation,  in  the  regenerate 
soul.  Faith  stands  forth  as  the  first-born  of  those 
graces. 

JI.  And  should  it  be  asked,  why  has  it  this  priority 
in  the  Christian  system  ;  we  answer,  it  may  well  oc- 
cupy this  place  of  precedency  in  the  scheme  of  man's 
salvation,  for  various  reasons.  Four  might  be  named ; 
one  derived  from  man's  past  history,  another,   from 

*  Rom.  viii.  29,  30. 


44  RELIGIOUS     PROGRESS. 

the  relations  of  God  and  man,  yet  another  from  God's 
great  goodness,  and  the  last,  from  man''s  present, 
besetting  sin.  Man's  history  required  it.  Unbelief, 
the  opposite  of  faith,  had  the  primary  place  in  man's 
fall  and  perdition.  When  the  Tempter  instilled  sus- 
picion, as  to  the  Divine  veracity,  into  the  minds  of 
our  first  parents,  then,  as  to  them,  "  Sin  was  con- 
ceived," and  soon  "  it  brought  forth  death,"  and  let  in 
all  our  v\'oe.  They,  who  had  originally  known  good 
only  and  fully,  knew  thenceforward  "  good  and  evil," 
the  one  by  its  loss,  and  the  other  by  its  cruel  and  con- 
stant presence.  It  occupies  the  first  place,  again, 
from  the  nature  respectively,  of  God  and  man.  He, 
as  the  Infinite  and  Omniscient,  knows  much  which 
man,  as  the  finite  being  of  limited  faculties  and  ex- 
istence, can  know  only  through  His  divine  testimony. 
The  past  of  our  original  history,  and  the  dim  future 
of  our  final  destiny,  we  can  learn  only  from  God's 
revelations.  And  going  beyond  our  own  history  and 
destiny,  what  could  we  learn,  as  to  the  counsels  and 
purposes  of  God  concerning  other  orders  and  hierar- 
chies of  his  creatures,  and  concerning  other  worlds  of 
His  universe,  except  as  He,  in  His  sure  Oracles, 
vouchsafed  to  disclose,  with  more  or  less  of  clearness, 
the  edge  and  outline,  so  to  speak,  of  those  vast  coun- 
sels, those  sublime  and  indefeasible  purposes  ?  Now 
till  we  have  faith  we  cannot  take  in  these  teachings. 
Again,  God''s  unutterable  tenderness  and  goodness 
have  assigned  to  Faith  this  post  of  precedency.  The 
babe,  yet  but  a  prattler,  may  have  full  trust  and  con- 
fidence in   the   parent  who  cherishes  and  fondles  it 


FAITH     THE     ROOT     OF     CHRISTIAN     LIKE.       45 

Before  it  can  reason,  or  even  speak,  it  may  believe  in 
its  father  and  mother.  Had  God  required  great  tal- 
ents, or  rich  attainments,  or  profound  study  ;  had  He 
said  to  the  inquirer :  Be  a  Palcy,  a  Butler,  a  Chal- 
mers, and  build  up  thy  salvation  by  the  study  of 
many  volumes  beneath  the  midnight  lamp;  where 
had  hope  been  for  the  young,  the  ignorant,  the  bar- 
barian,— in  fact  for  the  masses  of  the  race  ?  But 
He,  whose  kind  purpose  it  was  to  bring  "  many  sons" 
unto  salvation,  in  love  for  the  race  whom,  after  all 
their  provocations,  He  consented  not  to  abandon,  ap- 
pointed not  Learning,  not  Philosophy,  not  Wisdom, 
but  Faith  to  be  the  handmaiden  keeping  the  gate  of 
everlasting  life.  And  man's  besetting  sin, — the  pride, 
which,  after  all  the  deep  descent  and  all  the  foul  wal- 
lowings  of  the  Fall,  clings  so  persistently  to  him,  how- 
ever degraded  and  brutified, — made  it  fitting,  that  the 
mode  of  his  acceptance  before  God  should  be  one  that 
allowed  no  occasion  for  boasting.  Had  merit  or  ser- 
vice, intellectual  or  moral,  been  the  plea,  the  presen- 
tation of  which  would  win  our  pardon,  and  open  to  us 
Heaven,  then  man's  obstinate  infirmity,  the  pride 
that  first  precipitated  him  out  of  Eden,  would  have 
been  fostered  and  confirmed.  But  what  shadow  of 
merit  can  we  claim,  in  believing  the  true  testimony 
of  a  truthful  and  trustworthy  witness  ?  Peremptorily 
and  finally  God  thus  excluded  all  self-righteousness. 
Or,  as  Paul  argues,  it  is  of  faith  and  not  of  works, 
that  before  God  no  flesh  may  boast.  And  so  also, 
that  before  God  no  flesh  may  despair.  The  vilest 
may  repent  and  believe,   and  accept  free  forgiveness. 


46  RELIGIOUS     PROGRESS. 

The  best  must  repent  and  believe,  and  accept  free  for- 
giveness. No  immorality  is  too  low,  and  foul,  for  this 
righteousness  of  Faith  to  reach :  no  morality  is  too 
high  and  pure,  that  it  should  need  this  righteousness 
of  Faith,  for  the  concealment  of  its  deficiencies  and 
'  the  pardon  of  its  demerits.  The  sinner  fleeing  to  the 
city  of  refuge,  must  take  the  cross  on  his  way,  and 
bow,  in  faith,  before  Him  who  hanging  thereon  made 
an  end  of  sin,  and  brought  in  an  everlasting  righteous- 
ness. 

III.  But  will  not  a  scheme  of  salvation,  thus  free 
and  indiscriminate,  break  down  all  virtue,  and  "  the 
dignity  of  human  nature,"  and  abolish  law,  and  holi- 
ness, and  truth ;  and  give  up  the  church  militant  and 
triumphant  to  the  incursion  of  the  offscourings  of  our 
race?  So,  in  all  ages,  objectors  have  argued.  But 
the  Providence  of  Grod,  and  the  history  of  the 
Churches,  have  sufficiently  answered  and  exploded 
these  cavillings.  The  faith  that  justifies,  is  implanted 
by  a  transforming  Spirit,  and  reconciles  to  a  Holy  and 
sin-hating  Father,  and  unites  to  a  Redeemer,  detest- 
ing and  destroying  iniquity.  He  came  to  save  His 
people //"o^H  their  sin  ;  not  as  Antinomianism  virtually 
travesties  it,  to  save  them  in  their  sins  : — to  destroy  the 
works  of  the  devil ;  not  to  g;ild,  and  canonize  and 
perpetuate  them.  "Whilst  Faith  then  accepts  pardon 
as  God's  free  gift,  it  accepts  as  the  inseparable  con- 
comitants of  that  pardon,  penitence  for  sin ;  gratitude 
to  the  Griver ;  ingenuous  love ;  adoption  into  the 
household  of  G-od ;  and  assimilation  to  the  Elder 
Brother, — the    head    of   that   household.     "While    the 


FAITH    THE    ROOT    OF    CHRISTIAN     LIFE.  47 

energy  of  His  righteousness  justifies,  the  energy  of  the 
Renewing  and  Sealing  Spirit  sanctifies. 

From  Ike  necessity  of  its  nature,  the  implanted 
Faith  becomes  a  root  of  spiritual  growth,  and  a  prin- 
ciple of  practical  development.  For  Faith  must  take 
a  whole  Christ,  in  the  entireness  of  his  offices,  as  the 
Sovereign  no  less  than  as  the  Redeemer ;  and  take  a 
whole  Scripture,  in  its  precepts,  its  solemn  warnings, 
and  its  awful  denunciations,  no  less  than  in  its  prom- 
ises, free,  full  and  benignant ;  and  take  a  whole  God, 
in  the  august  fulness  of  His  perfections,  the  Jealous 
God,  and  the  Avenger,  whose  eyes  are  too  pare  to  look 
upon  iniquity,  as  well  as  the  Gracious  and  the  Long- 
suffering,  who  will  not  have  any  to  perish.  Faith 
does  not  assume  to  dissect  away  the  Divine  Justice 
from  the  Divine  Mercy.  It  was  a  fraudulent  claimant 
to  the  sacred  title  of  mother,  who  at  the  throne  of 
Solomon,  asked  the  division  of  the  living  child.  And 
it  is  but  a  spurious  Faith,  and  a  forged  Christianity, 
that  would  hew  apart,  at  the  foot  of  the  Mercy  Seat, 
the  living  Christ,  and  taking  his  grace,  leave  His  holi- 
ness. 

In  its  earlier  stages,  faith  is  generally  but  feeble. 
That  it  should  remain  so,  is  not  the  will  of  Him  who 
implants,  who  requires,  and  who  sustains  it.  When 
our  Lord  rebuked  his  disciples,  it  was  as  those  of 
"little  faith,"  and  so  small  did  he  regard  it,  in  its  ex- 
isting measure  as  shown  in  their  hearts  and  acts,  that 
it  did  not  equal  the  mustard-seed.  Had  they  but 
even  that  scanty  and  petty  degree  of  faith,  they  could 
remove  mountains  at  a  word,  and  fling  their  uprooted 


48  RELIGIOUS    PROGRESS. 

bulk  into  the  seas.  The  Apostle  Paul,  on  the  other 
hand,  in  a  later  day  of  the  dispensation,  when  the 
Spirit  had  been  more  largely  poured  forth,  rejoiced 
over  the  Thessalonian  Christians,  in  the  increase, — 
the  "  exceeding"  increase,  of  their  faith,  and  that  not 
in  the  case  of  a  favored  few  only,  but  in  their  whole 
community.  "  We  are  bound  to  thank  Grod  always 
for  you,  brethren,  as  it  is  meet,  because  that  your 
faith  groweth  exceedingly ^  and  the  charity  of  every 
one  of  you  all  toward  each  other  aboundeth."*  .  It  is 
recorded  to  Abraham's  honor,  that  he  was  "  mighty  in 
faith."  And  whilst  all  have  not  the  actual. attain- 
ment of  the  like  might  of  trust  in  God,  it  is  set  before 
all,  as  alike  their  privilege  and  their  duty.  Those 
who  have  attained,  are  honored,  and  presented  as  pat- 
terns and  incentives  for  the  emulation  of  those  who 
come  after.  "  Being  dead,  they  yet  speak."  It  was  a 
touching  memorial  to  their  comrade,  the  warrior  of 
Breton  birth.  La  Tour  d'Auvergne,  the  first  grenadier 
of  France,  as  he  was  called,  when  after  his  death,  his 
comrades  insisted  that,  though  dead,  his  name  should 
not  be  removed  from  the  rolls :  it  was  still  regularly 
called,  and  one  of  the  survivors  as  regularly  an- 
swered for  the  departed  soldier  :  "  Dead  on  the 
field."  The  eleventh  chapter  of  the  Epistle  to  the 
Hebrews  is  such  roll-call  of  the  dead.  It  is  the  regis- 
ter of  a  regiment,  which  will  not  allow  death  to  blot 
names  from  its  page,  but  records  the  soldiers  who 
have,  in  its  ranks,  won  honorable  graves  and  long-abid- 
ing victories.  Faith  was  the  principle  that  wrought 
*  2  Thessal.  ii.  3. 


FAITH     THE     ROOT     OF    CHRISTIAN-    LIFE.        49 

in  these  ancient  worthies  of  the  church  their  prowess 
and  their  high  achievements.  And  though  dead  to  man 
on  earth,  they  are  yet  "  living  unto  God."  "We  are  to 
press  forward  in  their  steps,  to  emulate  their  might 
and  glory,  and  to  uphold  and  extend  their  conquests. 

1.  From  the  nature  of  faith,  and  of  the  human 
mind  itself,  faith,  where  well  placed,  on  a  trustworthy 
object,  must  grow  and  strengthen  by  exercise  and 
continual  repetition.  The  friend  with  whom  we  have 
taken  long  and  intimate  counsel,  who  has  lightened, 
by  dividing,  our  sorrows,  and  heightened,  by  doubling 
them,  our  enjoyments,  must  occupy  in  our  confidence 
a  place  such  as  no  stranger  can  suddenly  conquer.  And 
God  has  so  arranged  the  changes  and  tests  of  his  provi- 
dence, that  man  needs  daily  to  appeal  afresh  in  the 
new  emergencies  of  the  new  day,  to  the  care,  and  skill, 
and  truth  of  his  Father  on  high.  If  such  appeal  be  but 
made,  the  act  becomes  a  rooted  habit ;  and  he  who,  in 
earlier  times,  but  cried,  through  tears,  as  he  felt  the 
waverings  of  a  feeble  faith,  and  the  blasts  of  mighty 
temptation,  "  Lord,  I  believe,  help  thou  my  unbelief," 
learns  to  adopt,  in  his  later  experience,  the  firm  assur- 
ance of  Paul,  "  I  know  in  whom  I  have  believed  ;"  or 
with  the  patriarch  exclaims,  "  I  know  that  my  Re- 
deemer liveth." 

2.  The  growth  set  before  our  faith  appears,  again, 
from  the  character  and  structure  of  Scripture,  the 
vokime  on  whose  testimonies  faith  fastens,  and  in 
whose  rich  pastures  she  mu.st  ever  feed.  God  might 
have  made  it  a  book  to  be  exhausted  at  one  reading ; 
or  a  record  of  the  Past,  unavailing  to  the  men  of  the 

3 


50  RELIGIOUS     PROGRESS. 

Present ;  or  a  mysterious  outline  of  the  Future,  of  lit- 
tle clearness  or  usefulness  till  the  times  of  its  fulfil- 
ment had  come.  Instead  of  this,  it  is  a  book  of  all 
times,  full  of  the  ancient  Past,  and  the  busy  Present, 
and  the  dread  or  gorgeous  Future.  It  has  the  simplest 
teachings  interwoven  inextricably  with  its  most  fathom- 
less mysteries  ;  and  precept,  and  promise,  and  threat- 
ening, and  history,  and  parable,  and  psalm,  so  grouped, 
that  every  taste  may  be  gratified,  and  none  sated  and 
cloyed.  A  Newton,  sitting  down  to  its  perusal,  finds 
it  still  opening  new  depths  of  wonder  and  glory,  the 
more  prolonged  and  devout  are  his  meditations  upon  it. 
The  new  convert,  dazzled  over  its  pages  with  the  ec- 
stacy  of  his  new-foand  hope,  yet,  cannot  as  deeply  and 
ardently  love  and  value  it,  as  he  will  do  when  a  gray- 
headed  patriarch,  years  after,  he  turns  afresh  its  won- 
drous leaves  to  adore  the  ever- full  freshness  of  its  les- 
sons, and  to  remember  all  the  lights  it  has  cast  upon 
his  weary  pathway.  It  is  the  book  not  of  an  academic 
lustrum  only,  nor  of  a  lifetime,  but  of  generations. 
As  centuries  have  rolled  on,  this  august  volume  has 
notched  on  their  calendar  new  fulfilments  of  its  prophe- 
cies, new  illustrations  of  its  truthfulness,  and  new 
evidences  that  its  authorship  could  come  from  none 
other  than  the  Former  of  the  worlds,  and  the  Ruler  of 
all  centuries.  Now,  when  Faith  is  presented  with  such 
a  manual,  not  to  be  mastered  in  weeks  or  years,  but 
still  evolving  new  lights  to  the  latest  studies  of  the 
longest  lifetime,  does  not  the  character  and  structure 
of  the  book  proclaim  the  intent  of  God,  that  Faith 


FAITH    Tlin    ROOT    OF    CHRISTIAN    LIFE.  51 

should  not  sit  down  content  with  present  attainments, 
and  its  as  yet  immature  strength? 

3.  And  so  too,  the  character  of  God  Himself  pro- 
claims the  same  great  law  of  the  constant  growth  of 
faith.  "  Acquaint  thyself  with  Him  and  be  at  peace," 
is  the  demand  of  Reason,  no  less  than  Scripture.  It 
is  not  in  the  mere  exercise  of  his  Sovereignty,  but 
quite  as  much  from  the  mere  impulse  of  his  mercy, 
that  He  requires  the  beings  He  has  formed  and  en- 
dowed to  seek  him.  Man  has  capacities  and  aspira- 
tions that  the  earthly,  the  perishable,  the  finite  and  the 
sinful  can  never  satisfy.  In  tenderness  to  our  race, 
God  commands  them  to  seek  in  Himself,  in  the  knowl- 
edge of  His  nature  and  will,  and  in  communion  with 
Him,  those  enjoyments  that  nought  lower  and  less 
than  Himself  can  furnish.  We  can  easily  conceive, 
in  the  lower  orders  of  creation,  how  unhappy  it  were 
that  a  being  of  higher  endowments  and  long  duration, 
should  be  decreed  to  mate  with,  and  hang  upon  one 
of  much  inferior  nature,  and  of  shorter  date  than  it- 
self. If,  for  instance,  the  aloe,  the  plant  of  centuries, 
were  fated  to  be  the  appendage  and  parasite  of  the 
ephemeron,  the  insect  of  a  day,  it  would  be  doomed 
virtually  to  early  and  lonely  widowhood  by  the  un- 
timely decay  of  its  idol,  and  the  perfect  inadequacy 
and  early  rottenness  of  its  appointed  prop.  The  soul, 
with  its  unrenounceable  immortality,  and  its  infinite 
aspirations,  is  such  plant  of  the  long  centuries,  an 
aloe  of  the  eternities  beyond  this  world.  Did  God 
permit  man  to  accept  as  his  supreme  standard,  and 
object,  and  end,  aught  finite,  mortal  and  imperfect,  it 


52  RELIGIOUS     PROGRESS. 

would  be  mating  this,  his  creature,  to  inevitable  dis- 
appointment, and  boundless  misery.  But  being  Him- 
self the  only  one  in  whom  man  can  be  at  peace,  it  is 
in  love  no  less  than  in  righteousness,  that  He  demands 
man's  devotion  and  reliance.  Faith  is  the  channel  of 
this.  And  the  exhaustless  infinitude  of  the  reservoir 
thus  opened  implies  the  growing  faith,  and  the  grow- 
ing love,  and  the  growing  gratitude  of  the  human  and 
dependent  being,  between  whom  and  the  Fountain  of 
all  Being,  faith  has  opened  the  channel.  The  revela- 
tion Grod  has  made  of  Himself,  sets  before  the  soul 
eternity  as  the  limitless  horizon  of  its  hopes  and  des- 
tinies. When  Sorrow  is  musing  over  the  mouldering 
dust  of  the  lost,  and  Philosophy  whispers  and  stam- 
mers its  faint  hopes  of  an  obscure  and  shadowy  Per- 
haps, and  of  a  Judge  who  may  perchance  be  friendly, 
and  of  an  Eternity  perad venture  one  of  felicity.  Faith — 
mighty  Faith,  clasping  the  clue  of  Scripture,  and  look- 
ing to  the  cross  and  opened  tomb  of  him  who  is  the  Re- 
deemer and  the  Resurrection, — that  Christ  Jesus  who 
brought  life  and  immortality  to  light, — sees  clearly,  and 
promises,  confidently  and  explicitly,  an  abundant  en- 
trance into  an  everlasting  kingdom,  and  a  cordial  wel- 
come to  a  glorious  home,  in  the  brotherhood  of  angels, 
the  bosom  of  the  Redeemer  and  the  heart  of  the  Divino 
Father.  In  the  character  of  Jesus,  the  incarnate  G-od, 
it  finds,  for  all  its  aspirations  after  excellence  an  Infi- 
nite and  Perfect  Pattern,  and  for  all  its  cravings  after 
sympathy,  an  unfailing  and  effective  Solace.  In  the 
Scriptures  discovering  and  pursuing  an  exhaustless 
mine  of  truth,  it  discerns  also  along  the  whole  course 


FAITH    THE    ROOT    OF    CHRISTIAN    LIFE.  53 

of  history,  the  track  and  foot-prints  of  a  Superintend- 
ing and  Unerring  Providence,  the  same  in  purpose  and 
plan  that  the  Bible  describes  in  the  Lord  of  lords  and 
King  of  kings.  Thus  taught,  it  sees  the  mysteries 
and  sorrows,  the  vexations  and  conflicts  of  life  ex- 
plained as  elsewhere  they  are  not ;  and  to  its  view, 
thus  strengthened  and  extended,  earth  and  Heaven 
run  into  each  other.  This  prepares  for  that  state. 
That  state  redresses  the  wrongs  and  woes  of  this. 
And  the  Christian's  duties,  trials  and  snares  compel 
him  more  habitually  to  ponder  these  truths,  and  make 
it  continually  more  and  more  his  interest  to  heed  and 
trust  God's  true  testimonies  as  to  the  reasons  of  His 
dispensations.  And  Christ  is  found,  in  the  believer's 
prolonged  experience,  more  and  more  to  deserve  at  the 
hands  of  His  followers  an  implicit  credence  and  an 
unreserved  confidence.  The  more  frequently  He  is 
consulted,  and  the  more  simply  He  is  relied  upon,  the 
better  is  He  loved,  and  yet  the  more  deeply  is  He  re- 
vered and  adored.  The  more  clearly  is  He  seen  to  be, 
at  the  same  time,  in  His  humanity  near  and  approach- 
able, and  in  His  holy  symmetry  of  moral  character, 
and  in  his  full  Divinity  the  infinitely  high  and  unap- 
proachable ;  and  thus  is  He,  at  the  same  time,  very 
near,  as  the  centre  of  our  existence  in  whom  we  live 
and  have  our  being,  and  yet  infinitely  outspread  be- 
yond and  above  us,  as  the  wide  and  untraceable  cir- 
cumference of  an  all-embracing  and  omnipresent  Deity. 
And  as  we  see  how  the  promises  of  Scripture,  all  radi- 
ating from  Him,  and  all  attracting  to  Him,  changed 
in  earlier  times  the  face  of  earth  and  opdned  the  win- 


54  RELIGIOUS     PROGRESS. 

dows  of  Heaven,  we  are  rebuked  in  our  apathy,  and 
become  awakened  to  prove  for  ourselves  their  yet  un- 
spent energy.  You  see  in  the  missionary  carrying 
this  gospel  to  the  ancient  haunts  of  Paganism  where 
Satan's  seat  is,  and  you  read  in  the  story  of  the  Re- 
formers and  the  primitive  Christians,  the  need  and  the 
might  of  Faith,  resting  upon  these  same  promises,  and 
upon  the  Great  Head  of  the  Church  around  whom  these 
promises  cluster.  And  what  these  laborers  needed  and 
yet  need,  you  alike  require.  Faith  is  as  indispensable 
to  you  as  to  them,  for  this  is  the  victory  that  overcometh 
the  world,  even  our  faith.  And  the  world  and  sin  and 
Satan  are  foes  to  be  vanquished  by  the  followers  of 
Christ  in  every  station  and  era  :  for  they  are  enemies 
not  peculiar  to  the  fields  of  heathenism,  or  to  the  times 
of  Truth's  first  collisions  with  Rome  Pagan,  or  Rome 
Papal. 

4.  The  office  and  character  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  the 
author  of  Faith,  point  to  the  same  results.  The  Sa- 
viour himself  described  the  influence  of  this  Spirit's 
indwelling,  "  as  a  well  of  water"  in  the  disciple 
*'  springing  up  into  everlasting  life."*  The  fountain, 
leaping  into  the  sunlight,  with  ever  fresh  waters,  is 
not  wearied — is  not  spent,  because  for  ages  it  has  been 
pouring  forth  its  new  streams,  under  changing  skies, 
and  rolling  seasons,  and  amid  the  revolutions  and 
decay  of  human  empires.  For  it  there  has  been 
needed  no  pause,  no  intermission  ;  but  it  goes  rejoic- 
ing and  sparkling  on  its  way.  And  even  thus  we  are 
taught  that  the  waters  of  life  within  the   renewed 

*  John,  iv.  14. 


FAITH    THE    ROOT    OF    CHRISTIAN    L.".  FE.  55 

soul, — the  impulses  of  Faith  caught  from  the  Spirit, 
the  former  of  faith — will  be  evermore  shooting  up- 
ward with  an  unspent  energy,  and  maintaining  a  per- 
petual freshness.  It  may  be  objected,  such  views  of 
this  grace  imply  its  continuance  into  the  eternal  world. 
We  accept  the  inference.  The  apostle  Paul  expressly 
speaks  of  Faith  with  Hope  and  Charity  as  abiding.  Tho 
excellent  Watts,  in  many  of  his  hymns,  has  aided  to 
foster  the  opinion  that  Faith  expires  with  the  attain- 
ment of  the  celestial  state.  But  whilst  we  allow  that 
the  saints  in  light  "  walk"  not  "  by  faith,"  as  do  the 
saints  of  earth,  but  rather  "  by  sight ;"  we  do  not  see 
that  this  involves  the  extinction  of  all  faith.  Much 
of  all  the  knowledge  of  a  finite  and  dependent  being 
must  consist  in  faith  upon  the  statements  of  the  Om- 
niscient and  All-sustaining  God,  the  Being  whose 
knowledge  is  alone  all-embracing  sight,  and  omnipres- 
ent vision.  Even  the  angels,  we  know,  have  not  un- 
limited knowledge,  for  the  Saviour  declares  that  they 
know  not  the  date  of  the  judgment  day.  Imagine 
one  of  these  angels  to  have  from  God  hereafter,  and 
before  its  occurrence,  intelligence  of  that  dread  date, 
how  otherwise  would  he  know  it  than  by  faith, — faith 
in  the  veracity  and  fuller  knowledge  of  the  God  mak- 
ing to  him  such  special  communication  ?  The  celes- 
tial state,  and  even  the  angelical  rank,  are  not  then 
inconsistent  with  the  need  and  exercise  of  Faith. 

Faith,  thus  ever-growing,  alike  from  the  nature  and 
laws  of  the  human  mind  into  which  it  comes,  and  of 
the  revelation  and  scripture  on  which  it  feeds,  and  of 
the  God  on  whose  chara/jter  and  work  it  dwells,  and 


56  RELIGIOUS     PROGRESS. 

of  the  Holy  Spirit  in  whose  agency  it  begins  and  is 
continued,  spreads  its  influence  into  all  the  affections 
of  the  soul,  and  all  its  estimates  of  life,  and  moulds 
alike  its  views  of  duty  and  danger  and  interest.  If  "  as 
the  man  thinketh  in  his  heart,  so  is  he  ;"  especially  do 
those  "  thinkings'^  which  refer  to  eternity  and  G-od 
affect  and  mould  his  whole  "  being.''''  True,  genuine 
Faith,  whilst  before  God  it  is  the  most  humble  and 
dependent  of  principles,  becomes  before  the  world  and 
Hell,  the  most  independent,  impracticable,  and  unman- 
ageable of  principles.  It  "  endures"  and  subdues  the 
world  and  the  Prince  of  this  world,  "  as  seeing"  the 
Victor  and  Doomer  of  that  world,  "Him  the  In- 
visible" Grod.  It  is  a  pregnant  remark  of  the  acute 
and  devout  Bengel,  that  as  Faith  is  here  made  the 
parent  of  all  Christian  graces,  so  Unbelief,  its  opposite, 
gives  birth  and  kindred  to  a  long  train  of  allied  sins.* 
He  who  scouts  the  word  of  God's  good  revelation  and 
that  Incarnate  Son,  who  is  eminently  the  Word  of 
God,  will  find  that  his  unbelief  does  not  dwell  alone,  a 
solitary  and  sterile  sin.  It  takes  to  itself,  necessarily, 
other  sins,  its  kin  and  descendants ;  and  as  in  the  par- 
able of  our  Lord,  "seven  devils  worse  than  the  first," 
may  be  found,  at  last,  the  occupants  of  that  soul, 
which  seemed,  at  first,  "  empty,  swept  and  garnished." 
The  modes,  in  which  an  enlargement  of  this  grace 
is  to  be  sought,  we  cannot  here  and  now  specify^ 
Prayer — much  prayer  is  evidently  needed.  '  The  Spirit 
as  the  implanter  and  sustainer  of  faith,  and  Christ  as 
its  great  Theme  and  Root,  are  to  be  honored  by  such 
*  See  Appendix.  Note  B. 


FAITH    THE    ROOT    OF    CHRISTIAN    LIFE.  57 

earnest  and  constant  prayer.  The  connection  of  strong 
supplication  with  strong  confidence  is  beautifully  im- 
plied, in  the  manner  in  which  the  Old  Testament,  and 
the  New,  vary  the  language  of  one.  and  the  same 
promise.  The  prophet  Isaiah,  in  announcing  the 
Messiah,  as  the  object  of  faith  to  the  Gentiles,  has  the 
language,  as  our  translators  literally  render  it  from 
the  Hebrew  :  "  And  in  that  day  there  shall  be  a  Root 
of  Jesse,  which  shall  stand  for  an  ensign  of  the  people ; 
to  it  shall  the  Gentiles  seek."*  The  same  Holy 
Spirit,  when  moving  on  the  mind  of  the  Apostle  Paul 
to  reproduce  this  testimony,  in  another  language,  the 
Greek,  thus  varies  it:  "And  again  Esaias  saith: 
there  shall  be  a  Root  of  Jesse,  and  he  that  shall  rise 
to  reign  over  the  Gentiles ;  in  him  shall  the  Gentiles 
TRusT."t  The  "seeking"  of  prayer  and  adoration, 
and  the  "  trusting"  of  Faith,  are  here  regarded  as  one 
and  interchangeable.  And  whether  the  efficacy  of 
Prayer,  in  obtaining  and  in  expanding  the  gift  of 
Faith,  on  the  one  hand,  or,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
spontaneous,  energetic  impulse  of  Faith,  to  reveal  and 
embody  itself,  in  vows,  and  appeals,  and  strong  sup- 
plications to  the  object  of  its  trust,  be  regarded,  it 
will  readily  be  seen,  how  the  seekers  soon  become 
those  who  trust  in  Christ,  and  how  those  trusting  in 
this  Root  of  Jesse  and  this  Ensign  to  the  Gentiles,  do 
habitually  and  earnestly  seek  Him.  Blessed  will  our 
lot  be  thus  to  believe,  and  thus  to  worship.  For  he 
that  believeth  shall  be  saved.  And  whosoever  shall 
call  on  the  name  of  the  Lord  shall  be  saved. 

*  Isaiah,  xL  10.  t  Eoto.  xv.  12. 

3* 


58  RELIGIOUS     PROGRESS. 

Faith  is,  again,  to  be  clierished  and  strengthened, 
by  exercise.  As  the  earthly  warrior  is  not  made  such, 
by  the  hokliday  parade  merely,  the  epaulette,  and  the 
nodding  plume,  and  the  fluttering  of  silken  standards, 
but  by  the  dust  and  toil  of  the  actual  field,  and  by 
the  agony  of  the  strife  and  the  death-grapple  ;  so  the 
heroes  of  faith  become  such,  not  by  mere  profession, 
or  large  knowledge,  or  solemn  rite,  but  by  fighting 
manfully  the  good  fight  of  faith,  armed  with  the 
whole  armor  of  God,  and  resisting,  in  the  name  and 
strength  of  the  Captain  of  their  salvation,  sin  unto 
the  death.  They  thus  resist  it  in  the  world,  and  in 
the  church,  in  heathendom  abroad  and  in  Christendom 
at  home ;  but  most  anxiously  and  most  earnestly,  first 
and  last,  do  they  resist  its  triumphs  and  detest  its 
power  in  their  own  hearts  and  lives. 

Even  the  worldly  and  sensual  G-oethe  could  admire, 
and  in  his  biography  has  recorded  his  admiration  of, 
the  power  of  a  simple  faith  in  his  friend,  the  pious, 
but  at  times  visionary  Jung  Stilling.  Be,  disciple  of 
Christ,  what  interest,  and  duty,  and  vows — what  a 
Redeemer's  commands  and  a  Redeemer's  promises — 
what  the  love  and  the  energy  of  the  Indwelling  Spirit, 
all  alike  require  thee  to  be — eminently  a  believer. 
Let  a  "  thus  saith  the  Lord,"  be  to  thee,  evidence  suf- 
ficient and  indubitable.  A  "  thus  saith  the  Lord," 
built  the  world  at  first.  It  may  well  lay  and  rear  the 
whole  fabric  of  thy  hopes  from  nethermost  base  to 
topmost  pinnacle.  It  was  the  Messiah's  own  weapon, 
in  his  personal  conflict  with  the  Tempter,  and  Satan 
remembers  yet  its  deadly  edge.     Even  for  this  life, 


fAITH    THE    ROOT    OF    CHRISTIAN    LIFE.  59 

what  power  has  a  blind  or  misplaced  Faith.  Buona- 
parte exulted  in  the  vague  sentiment,  that  a  Higher 
Power  held  and  guided  him.  He  claimed  to  be  the 
Child  of  Destiny.  It  made  his  will  iron,  and  his 
hopes  generally  invincible.  It  is  your  felicity  and 
glory,  not  vaguely  to  hope,  but  distinctly  to  know 
from  the  book,  and  covenant,  and  oath  of  the  Almighty 
God,  that  you  are  the  child,  not  of  a  blind,  unpledged 
Fate,  but  the  ward  and  offspring  of  a  paternal  and  be- 
nignant Providence ;  and  that  as  a  father  pitieth  his 
children,  so  the  Lord  pitieth  them  that  fear  Him. 
So  called — so  guided — so  guarded,  run  the  race  set 
before  thee ;  fight  the  good  fight — win  the  bright 
crown ; — the  race,  and  the  fight,  and  the  crown  of  an 
overcomini;  faith. 


LECTURE  III. 


VIRTUE. 


«  ADD  TO  YO0R   FAITH,  VIRTUE." 

2  Peter,  i.  5. 


We  hear  mucli  from  the  moralist  in  praise  of  virtue. 
He  portrays  in  brilliant  hues  her  serene  loveliness  and 
majesty  ;  and  calls  the  world  to  bow  at  her  feet,  daz- 
zled by,  and  adoring  her  radiance.  And  it  is  some- 
times intimated,  that  all  of  true  value  in  the  New 
Testament  is  the  resplendent  perfection  of  its  morality  ; 
and,  that  having  extracted  this,  we  may  safely  dismiss 
its  doctrines  and  mysteries  as  a  worthless  residuum, — 
the  lifeless  dregs,  of  no  further  advantage  when  the  es- 
sence and  elixir  of  their  composition,  or  the  moral  code 
of  the  Lawgiver  of  Nazareth,  has  been  once  drawn 
off.  Christ  was  indeed  a  matchless  teacher  of  morals  ; 
but  He  was  something  more.  The  Christian  cannot 
accede  to  such  representations.  He  would  as  soon 
praise  the  flower  of  the  tulip  at  the  expense  of  its 
root,  and  believe  the  plant  the  better  for  the  loss  of 
what  gave  it  support  and  life  ;  and  as  easily  be  per- 
suaded to  show  his  sense  of  the  beauty  of  the  cloud 
of  blossoms  that  covers  a  fruit-tree  in  spring,  by  gird- 
ling and  blasting  the  darker  trunk  and  the  contorted 


VIRTUE,  61 

and  liidden  radicles  from  which  they  have  grown,  and 
thus  renouncing  the  hiscions  and  rnll-fonned  fruit,  into 
whicli  the  later  season  of  autumn  would  make  those 
blpssoms  to  grow,  as  he  would  hope  to  exalt  true  virtue 
by  disparaging  that  faith  whence  it  is  to  shoot,  and 
by  which  it  is  to  be  sustained  and  perfected. 

I.  And  what  is  virtue  ?  When  applied  to  beings 
above  man  or  to  objects  beneath  man,  we  suppose  it  to 
mean  power  for  good.  So  when  our  incarnate  "God 
and  Saviour  was  touched  by  the  woman  having  for 
years  an  issue  of  blood,  her  trembling  grasp  stole  virtue. 
There  was  power  for  good  and  for  hejfling,  in  the 
rustling  garments  and  the  hem  of  the  robe  of  the  In- 
carnate Deity.  80  too  in  objects  inanimate  we  may 
ascribe  to  a  remedy  virtue,  or  a  power  to  assuage  pain 
and  repel  disease.  But  applied  to  man  and  human 
conduct^  virtue  may  be  said  to  designate  habits  of 
GOOD.  It  is  not  the  occasional  act,  but  the  settled  and 
daily  practice,  and  the  rooted  habit  that  are  requisite 
to  render  a  man  truly  virtuous.  The  old  heathen 
looked  to  certain  classes  of  excellencies,  and  gave 
them  the  especial,  if  not  exclusive,  name  of  virtue. 
With  the  Roman  (and  so  the  Greek  before  him)  it  was 
courage.  He  knew  no  higher  moral  adorning  for  man 
than  this  bold  and  fearless  manhood  that  defied  peril, 
and  braved  death.  And  some  interpreters  of  Scripture, 
looking  to  this  narrow  and  classical  use  of  the  term, 
would  give  to  the  word  in  our  text  but  the  restricted 
meaning  of  boldness  in  the  profession  of  faith,  and 
would  suppose  the  apostle  to  require  of  the  disciple 
believing  in  Jesus  fearlessly  to  publish  it  before  the 


62  RELIGIOUS    PROGRESS. 

persecuting  magistrate  who  might  occupy  the  Pagan 
tribunal,  and  the  murderous  rabble  crowding  the  Pa- 
gan shrines.  In  the  few  other  instances  in  which  the 
word  occurs  in  the  New  Testament,  we  see  no  trace 
of  such  limited  and  narrow  signification,  and  would  not, 
therefore,  give  it  here  ;  alien  too  as  such  confined  and 
partial  sense  seems  to  the  current  of  the  passage.*  In 
the  days  of  chivalry,  a  similar  disposition  to  give  the 
honors  and  title  of  virtue  to  certain  isolated  traits  of 
excellence  displayed  itself.  Then,  as  in  classic  an- 
tiquity, virtue  was  in  the  one  sex  but  courage  and 
loyalty,  and*in  the  other  but  the  absence  of  indelicacy. 
It  was  the  praise  of  a  noble  family,  the  inventory  of  its 
hereditary  virtues,  that  all  its  sons  were  brave,  and 
all  its  daughters  chaste.  But  certainly  these  are  not 
the  whole  of  virtue.  A  warrior  may  be  brave  as  his 
own  sword,  and  have  too  as  little  conscience  or  mercy 
as  his  weapon.  Is  he  therefore,  virtuous,  though,  like 
Tilley  the  brave,  he  give  a  Magdeburg  to  the  horrors 
of  fire,  pillage,  and  rapine  for  whole  days  ?  Through 
the  long  gallery  of  British  sovereigns  is  seen  moving 
sullenly  Mary  of  the  Tudor  line.  She  was  of  unim- 
peached  purity,  and  shall  we  for  that  single  cause 
deem  her  like  the  character  portrayed  in  the  book  of 
Proverbs,  entitled  to  the  honors  of  a  "  virtuous  woman^^ 
whilst  we  remember  her  cold,  stern  ferocity,  and 
whilst  there  cling  to  her  queenly  robes  the  odors  of 
burnt  flesh,  gathered  from  her  human  holocausts  of  the 
meek  martyrs  of  Smithfield  ?  No.  Virtue  is  a  word 
of  wider  meaning.     We  suppose  it,  in  the  Scriptural 

•  See  Appendix,  Note  C. 


VIRTUE.  63 

use  of  it,  to  include  all  that  moral  excellence  which 
the  world  honors,  all  those  habits  of  good  which  are 
useful  to  human  society,  and  conduce  to  the  happiness 
and  order  of  this  present  life.  Now  godliness  is  profit- 
able for  the  world  that  now  is,  as  well  as  for  the  world 
to  come.  Virtue  thus  considered  is  the  human  and 
terrestrial  side  of  true  piety.  Religion  has  its  two 
aspects,  its  bearing  upon  the  one  hand  on  eternity,  and 
God,  and  the  invisible  world  of  his  abode  ;  and,  on  the 
other  side,  its  bearing  on  time  and  man,  and  this  vis- 
ible transitory  scene  of  our  earthly  pilgrimage.  And 
men  may  see  the  beauty  of  one  of  these  aspects  who 
have  no  sympathy  with,  or  adequate  conception  of,  the 
other  of  them.  The  generosity  of  Dorcas  might  win 
the  praise  of  her  poorer  neighbors,  whilst  they  neither 
understood  nor  liked  her  new  faith,  and  for  themselves 
clung  to  Paganism,  and  daily  adored  the  idols  whom 
she  had  most  earnestly  renounced.  The  centurion 
Julius,  and  the  governor  Festus,  and  the  king  Agrippa, 
might  all  respect  the  temperance,*  and  magnanimity, 
and  intelligence  of  the  apostle  Paul  ;  whilst  for  the 
Saviour  whom  he  served  they  had  neither  ears  nor 
heart.  Demetrius  had  "  good  report  of  all  men'''  for 
his  virtues,  whilst  his  piety  and  prayerful  habits,  and 
religious  principles,  could  be  appreciated  only  by  his 
fellow-disciples.  Here  we  see,  also,  the  reason  why, 
in  the  Bible — the  book  that  has  done  so  much  to  im- 
plant and  confirm,  to  perfect  and  diffuse  virtue  through- 
out the  world — the  volume,  to  which  personal  integrity, 
and  the  household  charities,  and  the  civic  virtues,  are 
all  so  largely  indebted,  there  is  yet  so  little  said  of 


64  RELIGIOUS     PROGRESS. 

mtue  under  that  name.  The  Scriptures  talk  much 
more  of  Holiness  and  Righteousness,  of  the  love  of 
Grod  and  the  love  of  man.  The  Bible  represents  us  as 
men  having  duties  and  relations  in  two  distinct  and 
remote  countries.  The  «ne  is  on  these  earthly  shores. 
Here  we  are  bound  to  our  fellow-man,  and  in  our  rela- 
tions to  him  should  cherish  and  display  all  the  virtues 
and  charities  of  the  home,  and  the  neighborhood,  and 
the  state,  as  upright,  diligent,  pure,  and  patriotic,  and 
useful  men.  But  there  is  another  land  where  are  our 
gravest  ties,  and  where  we  are  to  make  our  longest 
abode,  and  find  our  chiefest  inheritance.  Though  in- 
visible to  the  eye  of  sense,  E-eason  whispers  of  it.  Con- 
science intimates  it,  and  Faith  reveals  it.  There  our 
God  dwells,  there  adjudges  upon  character,  and  seals 
on  it  the  imprint  of  indelibility  and  eternity.  Already 
we  are  under  his  wrath  by  sin.  He  sent  thence  the 
ambassador  and  atonement  to  witness  the  possibility 
and  the  avenue  of  pardon.  Accessible  to  prayer.  He 
is  yet  sending  thence  grace,  forgiveness,  and  hope ; 
and  thither  at  death  he  gathers  the  good  into  endless 
bliss,  and  from  his  throne  there  consigns  to  exile  and 
wrath  the  unholy,  in  bonds  never  to  be  parted,  and  in 
flames  never  to  be  quenched. 

Now,  in  the  commerce  of  this  life  we  see  men  hav- 
ing obligations  in  two  countries.  If  they  have  debts 
and  duties  in  both,  their  discharge  of  these  debts  and 
duties  in  one  land  is  not  enough  to  pronounce  them 
honest,  should  they  wilfully  overlook  and  violate  the 
obligations  incumbent  upon  them  in  the  other.  So  is 
man  the  citizen  alike  of  Time  and  Eternity, — the  two 


VIRTUE.  65 

■worlds,  sevoied  by  the  narrow  frith  of  death; — the 
land  of  the  vif>ible  and  transitory,  and  the  land  of  the 
invisible  and  imperishable. 

Now  the  scriptural  term,  Holiness,  includes  both 
classes  of  duties.  It  takes  in  the  common  law  of  both 
these  worlds.  Virtue,  the  world's  more  favored  term, 
comprises  on  the  other  hand,  but  that  part  of  a  man's 
obligations,  in  this  life,  which  bind  him  to  his  fellow- 
citizens  here.  It  is  then  but  a  part — an  important 
part  it  must  be  owned, — but  still  only  a  lesser  and 
subordinate  part  of  the  entire  field  of  his  duties.  The 
Book  of  God,  looking  at  the  sons  of  Adam  as  the 
creatures  of  Heaven,  framed  by  it,  and  for  it,  demands 
of  them  holiness,  the  indispensable  term  of  citizenship 
there.  Looking  at  G-od  in  his  character  of  a  Righteous 
Sovereign,  it  demands  of  us,  His  subjects,  righteous- 
ness— inherent  or  imputed — that  we  may  please  Him 
whom  the  vinrighteous  cannot  please.  Looking  at 
Him  as  the  Source,  and  Sum,  and  Model  of  all  Moral 
Excellency,  it  demands  conformity  to  that  peerless 
image,  or  godliness.  Looking  at  the  motive  as  the 
true  coloring  and  law  of  the  act,  and  at  the  heart  as 
the  great  fountain  of  feeling  and  motive,  it  requires 
of  that  heart  as  its  supreme  law,  Love  to  God  in  the 
supremest  degree,  and  an  equitable  love  of  our  neigh 
bor  even  as  ourselves  ;  and  by  these  motives  would  have 
all  feeling  and  all  action  prompted.  Holiness,  or  Godli- 
ness, or  Righteousness,  as  prophets  and  apostles  speak, 
is  the  whole  duty  of  man  in  his  entire  being,  and  as  the 
citizen  of  two  worlds.  It  includes  Virtue,  as  the  whole 
includes    a  part.     But  Virtue  does  not  include  Holi- 


66  RELIGIOUS     PROGRESS. 

ness.  A  man  may,  as  far  as  the  outer  act  is  concerned, 
not  be  notoriously  deficient  (he  may  even  be  eminent 
and  praiseworthy)  in  his  earthly  and  human  relations, 
and  yet  lack  piety,  true  faith  to  God,  and  true  love  to 
Him,  and  so  miss  His  favor,  and  forfeit  His  heaven. 
When,  then,  cavillers  ask,  Why  should  not  the  Chris- 
tian give  up  his  doctrines  and  mysteries  of  Faith,  and 
fall  back  content  on  the  mere  bare  morals  of  the  New 
Testament — it  will  be  seen  that  the  objection  assumes 
to  divide  what  God  has  not  divided — to  sever  the 
man's  immortality  from  his  mortality.  Eternity  from 
Time,  and  Heaven  from  Earth,  the  throne  of  reckon- 
ing from  the  scene  of  probation,  and  the  Sovereign 
Creator  from  His  creature  and  subject.  It  assumes  to 
discharge  a  man  from  all  his  obligations  to  his  native 
country,  Heaven,  and  to  his  Father  and  Maker  there, 
provided  he  will  but  defray  his  moral  indebtedness, 
his  debts  of  human  duty  in  this  foreign  land  of  earth, 
where  he  stays  but  for  the  brief  date  of  this  present 
life,  and  which  he  must  quit  at  death.  It  sets  up  a 
power  in  human  society  and  earthly  morality,  to  com- 
pound for  man's  hopeless  insolvency  before  another 
tribunal,  in  a  greater  country  and  a  mightier  kingdom 
than  Earth  :  whilst,  at  the  same  time,  this  earth  re- 
mains necessarily  and  ever  but  a  subject  province  and 
outlying  colony  of  that  greater,  mightier  kingdom. 
It  teaches  a  man  to  take  out,  under  the  pettifogging 
legislation,  and  abridged  and  diluted  morality  of  the 
world,  an  indemnity  and  release,  that  is  to  discharge 
him  from  the  claims  of  his  Maker,  and  the  retributions 


VIRTUE.  C7 

of  Eternity.  Is  the  attempt  wise  ?  "Will  tlio  exper- 
iment be  safe  ? 

"We  have  thus  seen  the  nature  of  virtno.  and  its 
limits  as  a  part  of  true  piety,  and  inohided  within 
holiness,  but  not  itself  comprehendins^  all  that  the 
Scriptures  denote  under  the  names  of  godliness,  and 
righteousness,  and  kindred  terms. 

Now  the  apostle  speaks  of  Faith  as  requiring  the 
addition  of  Virtue,  or  as  involving  in  its  natural 
growth  and  development,  the  exhibition  of  these  hu- 
man and  earthly  excellencies.  Yet  there  has  been 
unhappily  a  disposition  to  divorce  the  two.  Faith  has 
been  professed  by  some  as  if  it  might  exist  bereft  of 
Virtue.  These  have  been  misjudging,  or  unfaithful 
professors  of  Christianity.  Others,  secretly,  or  by  un- 
blushing avowal,  the  opponents  of  the  Gospel,  have 
claimed  to  show  the  sufficiency  of  Virtue  without 
Faith.  Let  us  look  at  the  teachings  of  the  G-od  who 
made  us,  and  of  the  Revelation  that  shall  judge  us, 
and  learn  thence  how  Virtue  must  be  added,  to  or 
grow  out  of  Faith.  These  will  furnish  the  remaining 
divisions  of  our  theme.  The  nature  of  Virtue  wo 
have  already  discussed.     It  is  left  to  consider 

II.  Faith  without  Virtue. 

III.  Virtue  without  Faith  :  and  lastly, 

IV.  Faith  growing  into  Virtue. 

II.  As  early,  then,  as  the  days  of  apostles,  ere  yet 
the  canon  of  the  New  Testament  had  been  closed  with 
its  last  seals,  and  shut  up  with  its  dread  and  final 
thunderings,  there  were  in  the  Christian  Church  those 


68  RELIGIOUS     PROGRESS. 

who  would  make  Faith  suffice  without  Virtue.  And 
Paul  denounced  them  for  turning  the  grace  of  G-od 
into  licentiousness ;  and  James  challenged  them  to 
show,  if  it  were  possible,  a  genuine  Faith  without 
works  of  Virtue  and  Piety,  and  he  would  be  content 
to  show  his  Faith  by  such  works  and  fruits,  and 
which  are,  in  fact,  the  only  possible  evidences  before 
men  of  its  indwelling.  In  later  times  there  have  been 
similar  errors.  Some  really  loving  and  practising 
piety,  have  yet,  in  their  crude  and  hasty  theories,  dis- 
credited morality  and  virtue,  for  the  purpose  of  ex- 
tolling, as  they  supposed,  Religion.  Others,  enemies 
to  true  holiness,  have,  there  is  reason  to  fear,  sought 
to  hold  the  truth  of  God  in  unrighteousness, — with 
what  success  let  the  history  of  the  Cliurch  and  the 
world  show. 

To  the  honest  and  erring  panegyrists  of  Faith  at 
the  expense  of  Virtue,  it  has  seemed  impossible  to 
preserve  otherwise  the  great  doctrine  of  Justification 
by  Faith  in  the  Righteousness  of  Christ.  They  have 
feared  that  an  anxiety  on  the  part  of  Christian 
teachers  to  enforce  morality  on  the  disciples  of  the 
Saviour,  was,  in  the  matchless  imagery  of  the  immor- 
tal dreamer,  sending  men  to  inquire  the  way  to  the 
Celestial  City  "  from  that  young  man,  Mr.  Civility, 
dwelling  in  the  town  of  Morality,"  who  would  leave 
the  burdened  inquirer  to  shiver  and  perish  under  the 
overhanging  and  flaming  precipices  of  Sinai,  when 
the  true  pathway  led  to  the  foot  of  the  Cross.  They 
have  asked  ;  If  practising  good  works  to  man  be  neces- 
sary, how  could   the  dying  thief  be  saved,   who  had 


VIRTUE.  69 

not  leisure  and  scope  to  work  them  ?  Pointing  to  the 
great  and  unlcniable  fact  of  human  depravity,  as 
running  through  and  tainting  the  best  services  even 
of  the  best  saints,  whilst  yet  on  earth,  they  ask.  Can 
such  deeds,  so  imperfect  at  best,  have  any  share  in 
our  salvation  ?  Quoting  the  language  of  Augustine, 
when  in  his  own  daring  and  magnificent  style  he 
called  the  most  resplendent  virtues  of  old  heathenism 
and  of  the  Gentile  philosophy,  but  "  splendid  sins," 
from  the  pride  and  self-reliance  which  they  displayed, 
such  friends  of  Faith  have  asked ;  What  room  has 
Virtue,  human  and  imperfect,  in  the  scheme  of  Divine 
Grace  ? 

In  all  this,  they  overlook  the  harmony  of  Paul  and 
James.  With  the  great  apostle  of  the  Uncircumcision 
we  must  hold,  that  Faith  alone  justifies  before  God, 
and  this  without  works.  But  with  the  apostle  of  the 
Circumcision  we  must  also  hold  that  the  genuine 
Faith,  thus  justifying  before  God,  without  works  and 
by  Christ's  merits  and  righteousness,  yet  necessarily 
must,  when  it  quits  God's  courts  and  brooks  man's 
scrutiny,  before  man  justify  itself  by  works,  and  by 
Christ's  sanctification  in  us,  as  proof  of  such  faith. 
Before  the  dread  tribunal, — the  grand  and  fina'  audit 
— who  of  us  dare  appear  with  any  other  discharge 
than  that  which  the  mighty  Luther  saw  in  his  dream, 
the  record  steeped  in  the  blood  of  Christ  ?  Yes,  there, 
over  our  sentence  and  the  long,  dark  catalogue  of  of- 
fence and  demerit,  stands  inscribed,  alone  and  suffi- 
cient, on  the  roll:  ^'■Chrift  dicdy  He  was  made  sin 
for  us.     But  before  ma..,  and  in   ihis  life,  (before  *'ae 


70  RELIGIOUS     PROGRESS. 

man  of  the  church  and  the  man  of  the  world,)  I  un- 
furl another,  an  inferior  record.  The  faith  I  ask  you 
to  accept  and  fraternize,  men  of  the  church — the 
faith  I  ask  you  to  honor  and  imitate,  men  of  the 
world, — is  one  evidencing  its  origin  by  all  works  of 
holy  obedience ;  and  the  sentiment  emblazoned  on  it 
is,  "  Work  out  your  own  salvation  with  fear  and  trem- 
bhng." 

Thus  much  may  be  said  to  those  loving  the  great 
cardinal  truth  of  Justification  by  Faith,  and  dreading 
its  subversion  by  any  honors  as  they  fear  unwarrant- 
ably given  to  good  works,  or  virtue.  But,  there  is  an- 
other class  who  would  substitute  faith  for  virtue.  It 
was  most  wittily,  and  not  unjustly  said,  by  a  French 
scholar,  against  the  Jesuits,  in  their  anxiety  to  compli- 
cate doctrine  and  eliminate  piety,  that  they  were  men 
who  lengthened  the  creed  and  shortened  the  command- 
ments. Such  eras  of  misdirected  activity  in  the  pro- 
fessed churches  of  Christ  have  been  followed  by  the 
evident  and  sorest  scourges  of  Divine  Providence. 
The  .  Greek  Church,  losing  all  practical  holiness,  and 
wrangling  about  questions  of  no  profit,  as  the  apostle 
terms  them,  made  way  for  the  grand  outburst  of  Ma- 
hommedan  imposture  and  conquest  and  devastation. 
In  a  few  generations  after  Luther,  the  churches  of  Prot- 
estant Germany  became  thus  speculative  and  litigious 
for  the  faith,  and  there  too,  foulest  scandals  and 
fiercest  wars  ensued.  In  Catholic  France,  Louis  XY., 
the  most  debauched  of  the  profligate  race  of  the 
Bourbon  sovereigns,  was  in  his  fashion  a  stickler  for 
faith,  instructing  in  religious  doctrines  and  observances 


VIRTUE.  71 

the  wretched  companions  of  his  lewder  hours.  But 
what  better  service  did  such  motiveless  faith  do,  for 
religion,  than  was  done  by  the  sceptic  of  Ferney,  the 
relentless  Voltaire,  in  his  unblushing  blasphemies? 
A  faith  that  shamed  decency,  and  an  indecency  that 
scouted  faith,  were  both  alike  unchristian  :  and  in  all 
the  carnival  of  Hell  that  marked  the  first  French 
Revolution,  was  to  be  seen  not  more  the  action  of  the 
Infidelity  that  rejected  Christ,  than  the  reaction  of 
the  foul  Hypocrisy  that,  feigning  to  adore  Him,  had 
crucified  Him  afresh.  The  piety  of  such  mitred  and 
anointed  pretenders  as  Cardinal  Dubois  and  his  royal 
master  Louis  XY.,  was,  to  say  the  least,  as  much  re- 
sponsible for  the  Reign  of  Terror,  as  was  the  impiety 
of  Diderot,  A^oltaire,  or  D'Holbach.  And  the  modern 
professor  of  Christ's  name  needs  to  watch,  lest  he,  by 
formality  or  hypocrisy,  renew  the  sale  that  Judas 
made  of  the  Master  to  his  fiercest  enemies,  and  put  to 
an  open  shame  the  Lord  to  whom  he  has  vowed  and 
owes  the  profoundest  adoration.  As  for  Antinomian- 
ism,  where  it  really  exists,  claiming  Righteousness 
and  rejecting  Holiness,  and  making  orthodoxy  a  cloak 
for  all  unhealed  corruption,  it  is  a  foul  abuse  of  Grod's 
most  glorious  and  gracious  truths.  It  conserves  sin, 
when  the  gospel  w^ould  subdue  and  exterminate  it.  It 
wastes  the  balm  and  spikenard  and  myrrh  of  Christ's 
grace  in  embalming  that  body  of  death  against  which 
Paul  groaned  and  fought.  The  true  gospel,  [honoring' 
the  law,)  came  to  work  on  man  a  moral  resurrection, 
raising  the  spiritually  dead  to  newness  and  holiness 
of  life.     This  gospel  [against  the  law)  comes  to  put 


72  RELIGIOUS     PROGRESS. 

in  the  place  of  this  moral  miracle,  in  the  room  of  thig 
spiritual  resurrection  of  the  regenerate  soul,  a  mere 
Egyptian  resurrection, — retaining  the  shrivelled  and 
loathsome  and  decaying  mummy,  swathed  in  grave- 
clothes,  voiceless  and  motionless — not  a  soul  new  born 
from  sin,  but  a  soul  coffined  and  embalmed  in  sin. 

III.  But  there  is  another  class  who  proclaim  the 
superiority  of  Virtue  to  Faith,  and  the  sufficiency  be- 
fore G-od  and  man,  for  this  life  and  the  next,  of  Virtue 
without  Faith.  They  are  wont  to  quote  the  maxim, 
as  if  it  were  an  unquestionable  axiom  : 

"  For  modes  of  faith  let  graceless  bigots  tight, 
His  faith  cannot  be  wrong,  whose  life  is  right." 

But  if,  as  we  have  endeavored  to  show.  Virtue  be  but 
the  small  portion  of  man's  duties  that  he  owes  in  this 
life  to  his  fellow-mortals,  and  man  be  formed  for  an- 
other life  as  well  as  this,  and  have  a  G-od  as  well  as 
human  society  to  regard  and  propitiate,  it  seems  im- 
possible on  any  rational  principle,  much  more  upon 
any  scriptural  basis,  to  establish  it  that  the  discharge 
of  this  small  portion  of  his  obligations  shall  be  accepted 
in  full  for  his  neglect  of  yet  higher  duties  to  a  yet 
higher  Being.  And  if,  in  matters  of  human  courtesy 
and  friendship  even,  you  are  wont  to  look  at  the  mo- 
tive as  determining  the  worth  or  worthlessness  of 
the  service  rendered,  does  it  not  seem  necessary  even 
to  the  claim  of  true  virtue  for  these  social  and  human 
duties,  that  the  man  discharging  them  do  it  from  right 
motives,  from  the  true  love  of  man  and  the  paramount 
love  and   fear    of    Almighty    God?     Now,    G-od   has 


VIRTUE.  73 

wisely  and  kindly  so  framed  and  united  us,  that  these 
human  virtues  are  profitable  to  men,  and  honored 
amongst  them.  And  from  mere  selfish  love  of  such 
profit,  from  mere  vain  craving  after  this  attendant 
honor  and  praise,  men  may  discharge  the  duties.  But 
are  such  duties,  so  prompted  by  lower  and  baser  mo- 
tives, genuine  virtue?  Must  not  God  try  the  heart  to 
fix  the  character  of  those  actions  that  externally  and 
apparently  are  virtue,  but  that  may  prove  what  Augus- 
tine branded  as  "  splendid  sins"  ? 

Again,  take  a  few  of  the  more  eminent  and  exem- 
plary of  those  whose  virtues  are  thus  held  up  as  sur- 
passing the  fruits  of  Christian  faith.  Take  Hobbes, 
the  philosophical  oracle  of  the  court  of  the  last  Stuarts. 
Take  Hume,  whom  his  friend,  Adam  Smith,  pronoun- 
ced among  the  most  faultless  of  human  characters  ;  or 
in  later  times  Bentham.  We  have  selected  names 
amongst  those  destitute  of  faith,  who  were,  more  than 
ordinarily  sceptics  are,  examples  free  from  the  ordinary 
blots  of  immorality  that  attend  the  rejection  of  the 
Christian  faith.  And  after  a  close  analysis  of  the 
lives  and  influence  of  these  men,  do  you  not  find  the 
inquiry  of  the  apostle  remaining  still  in  full  force, 
"  Who  is  he  that  overcometh  the  tvorld,  but  he  that 
believeth  that  Jesus  is  the  Christ  ?"  Was  the  morality 
of  any  of  these  men  superior  to  the  average  morality 
of  their  times  ?  Did  Virtue  do  in  them  what  Faith 
achieves  in  the  Christian — overcome  the  world  ?  Did 
it  rise  above  the  world  as  they  found  it?  Again,  did 
it  tend  to  improve  that  world,  recovering  its  degraded, 
and  uplifting  its  oppressed  classes  ?     To  ascertain  this, 

4 


1f^  RELIGIOUS     PROGRESS. 

look  beyond  the  men  to  the  character  of  their  associ- 
ates and  disciples,  in  the  case  of  those  who  most  de- 
Uberately  and  boldly  propagated  their  own  rejection  of 
the  faith  of  the  Saviour.     Take  Hume's  doctrine  of 
tlie  comparative   harmlessness  of  licentiousness,   and 
the  innocence  of  suicide,  and  looking  at  the  moral  re- 
sults of  the  doctrines,  can  you  accept  the  teacher  of 
such  dogmas  as  a  virtuous  man,  more  than  you  would 
call   an  honest   and  good-tempered  retailer  of  covert 
poisons,    virtuous  ?       Look    at   the    deadly   efTect   on 
morals,  and  patriotism,  and  public  virtue,  of  the  les- 
sons of   Hobbes,   quoted  and  applauded  in  the  most 
profligate    and    unprincipled    court    that    ever  cursed 
England — look  at  the  social  speculations  and  princi- 
ples of  some  of  Bentham's  most  intimate  and  admir- 
ing disciples  :  and  do  you  not  see  that  instead  of  over- 
coming the  world,  theirs  was  a  virtue,  if  it  be  called 
such,  that  was  overcome,  debased,  and  lowered  by  the 
world  ?     But   take   their    principles,  abstracted    from 
the  continual  corrective  and  counterpoise  of  Christian 
influence  in  the  community  around.     Lay  aside   all 
Christian  faith.     Go  out,  as   missionaries  of  the  new 
Lights  of  Philosophy  without  Christianity ;  and  who 
of  you  would  hope  to  see  the  new  creed,  like  the  faith 
of  the  New  Testament,  teaching  the  barbarian,  taming 
the  cannibal,  quenching  the  funeral  pyre  of  the  Hindoo 
widow,  snatching  the  daughters  of  China  from  death 
in  infancy,  and  everywhere  disciplining  conscience,  in- 
spiring hope,  repressing  passion,  and  establishing  order 
— making  Freedom  possible,  and  Law  and  Duty  sov- 
ereign over  the  nations  ? 


VIRTUE.  ^ 

To  this  principle  of  the  sufficiency  of  virtue  without 
faith,  we  have,  then,  these  objections.  It  overlooks 
man's  immortality,  and  the  existence  of  an  endless 
state  beyond  the  tomb,  and  ignores  the  being  and  the 
rights  of  G-od.  It  takes,  again,  from  virtue  its  root 
and  its  law,  its  sanctions  and  its  motives,  and  thus 
exposes  it  to  speedy  decay.  It  wrongs  man  by  trun- 
cating his  nature  of  conscience  and  immortality.  It 
wrongs  G-od,  by  rejecting  His  revelation,  and  spurning 
as  needless,  His  provisions  of  the  Redeeming  Christ 
and  the  Renewing  Spirit.  Instead  of  evangelizing  the 
nations,  and  reforming  them,  it  has  but  aided  to  em- 
broil and  brutify  them. 

IV.  But  turn,  in  conclusion,  to  dwell  rather  upon 
the  union  that  Scripture  makes  between  the  two  prin- 
ciples, which  we  have  seen  isolated  and  divorced,  re- 
quiring as  those  Scriptures  do,  the  man  of  Faith  to 
become  the  pattern  of  Virtue,  abounding  in  every  good 
word  and  work. 

Multitudes  of  the  race,  then,  (and  this  the  -mere 
moralist  overlooks,)  have  become  the  victims  of  Vice, 
outcasts  from  the  school,  and  hostile  to  the  restraints 
of  Virtue.  The  problem  is  not  to  guide  the  sinless, 
but  to  recover  the  sinful.  They  are  the  rabble  whom 
the  philosopher,  in  mingled  scorn  and  despair,  does 
not  attempt  even  to  lecture,  an  audience  neither  "  fit" 
nor  "  few"  enough  to  accept  or  appreciate  his  labors. 
They  are  the  unwashen,  savage  hordes,  whom  civiliza- 
tion mowed  down  in  the  progress  of  her  colonies,  or 
held  pent  up  apart  in  the  purlieus  of  her  great  cities, 
or  harnessed  and  drove  as  a  part  of  the  machinery  to 


76  RELIGIOUS     PROGRESS. 

conduct  and  to  be  consuvwed  by  her  gigantic  manufac- 
tures. What  shall  reform  this  forlorn  class  ?  If  you 
bring  but  human  and  terrene  motives,  if  you  can  min- 
ister to  them  only  earthly  and  mortal  aids,  can  you 
crane  them  up  to  the  desired  level  of  knowledge  and 
self-respect  ?  How  can  you  efface  the  brand  of  sin  on 
their  souls  ?  Morality  has  not  the  Atoning  Calvary. 
It  cannot  call  down  on  its  Pentecostal  aspirations  the 
rushing  fires  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  falling  to  infuse  a 
new  soul  in  the  corrupt  grave  of  a  fallen  humanity, 
and  to  create  out  of  the  drudge  and  dupe  of  Belial, 
the  heir  of  Heaven  and  the  child  of  Grod. 

The  virtue  that  would  be  thus  recuperative,  on  the 
masses,  must  be  preceded  by  a  faith,  with  which 
shall  go  the  regenerating  power  of  Ood,  and  for 
which  shall  have  been  first  provided  the  great  remedial 
and  reconciliatory  process  of  the  Redemption.  Vir- 
tue, then,  needs  Faith  to  furnish  the  requisite  soil,  in 
which  to  set  her  pleasant  plants  of  righteousness,  and 
then  she  needs  to  find  in  the  lessons  and  examples  of 
Faith,  the  framework  on  which  those  plants  may 
grow,  and  above  all,  the  root  Christ,  on  whose  grace 
and  aid  all  true  virtue  in  man  must  be  engrafted ;  and 
then  she  needs  in  Faith  to  find  the  showers  of  the 
Spirit,  refreshing,  and  increasing,  and  fructifying  the 
offshoots  of  righteousness,  thus  planted,  thus  trained, 
and  thus  engrafted.  With  these  resources,  Yirtue  may 
be  spread  and  sustained.  But  without  them,  where  is 
the  power  that  can  make  the  individual,  the  house- 
hold, the  neighborhood,  the  tribe,  and  the  race,  really 
and  permanently,  habitually  and  radically,  virtuous  ? 


VIRTUE.  77 

Let  the  Pharisee  or  the  Sadducee  go  with  another  doc- 
trine than  that  of  Faith  to  Zaocheus,  would  they  have 
won  his  fourfold  restitution  of  aught  wrongly  gained  ? 
Let  the  Stoio  or  Epicurean  go  to  the  converts  c'' 
Ephesus,  whilst  not  yet  disciples  of  Jesus,  and  when, 
as  at  first,  addicted  to  magical  arts.  Could  Philosophy 
have  ejected  the  superstition  and  the  imposture,  and 
relaxed  the  hold  of  Fraud  and  of  Greed  upon  their 
souls  ?  Or,  to  come  down  to  our  times,  see  in  the 
Karert  Mission  Ko  Thah-Byu,  the  robber  and  murderer. 
Thirty  of  his  fellow-men,  that  tiger  in  human  form  has 
destroyed.  Can  your  philosophy,  your  morality,  your 
faith-scorning  virtue  make  him  what  the  Missionaries 
of  Christian  faith  made  him — penitent,  lowly,  loving, 
gentle,  prayerful,  and  harmless?  To  the  test.  Build 
for  your  virtue  its  altar  against  the  altar  of  our  faith. 
Call  down  the  living  fire.  And,  as  said  to  the  priests 
of  Baal,  the  prophet  of  Jehovah,  so  say  we  to  you : 
The  God  that  shall  answer  by  fire,  he  is  God. 

Faith  can  produce  Virtue.  Look  again  at  the  way 
in  which  she  instructs  virtue.  Read  the  12th  chapter 
of  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans,  or  take  the  same  apos- 
tle's discourse  of  Charity  and  its  fruits,  in  the  13th 
chapter  of  his  first  letter  to  the  Corinthian  church. 
Saw  you  ever  such  full,  and  brilliant,  and  unmatched 
portraitures  of  Virtue  as  this  ? 

But  beside  these  preceptive  instructions,  remember 
that  all  the  doctrines  and  mysteries  that  Faith  receives 
have  their  practical  lessons.  The  Fall,  and  Original 
Sin,  how  they  teach  humility  and  dependence  on  God 
— the  first  lessons  of  moral  progress.     The  Incarnation 


78  RELIGIOUS     PROGRESS. 

and  Redemption — is  that  a  mere  logomachy  ?  On  the 
contrary,  see  in  it  a  great  scheme  for  the  subdual  of 
sin,  and  the  implantation  of  Hope,  and  Love,  and 
Grratitude.  Look  at  the  Trinity,  and  "dark  with  in- 
Bufferable  brightness"  as  that  deep  and  astounding 
mystery  is,  yet  all  its  truths  minister  readily  and  con- 
tinually to  practical  virtue.  The  Father  stoops  to 
adopt  you  into  his  household,  and  awaken  confidence 
and  filial  awe.  The  Son  speeds  him  from  the  throne 
of  Paradise  to  the  deepest,  foulest  hold  of  your  dun- 
geon-home, to  uplift,  and  ransom,  and  ennoble  you — 
to  become  your  Brother,  and  Liberator,  and  Exemplar. 
The  Spirit  bends  over  your  ignorance,  as  the  Teacher, 
and  over  your  sadness  as  the  Comforter ;  and  Grod,  in 
His  Trinity,  is  thus,  on  every  side,  and  by  every  method, 
your  Help  and  exceeding  great  Reward,  Well  might 
the  poet  cry, 

"  Talk  they  of  morals  ? 
The  grand  morality,  thou  bleeding  Lamb, 
Is  love  of  Thee  1" 

But  must  Faith  produce  always  Virtue  ?  It  must, 
or  it  is  not  genuine.  The  inseparable  accompaniment 
of  true  Faith  in  Scripture  is  Repentance  ;  and  what 
is  Repentance  but  the  practical  and  hearty,  the  out- 
word  and  inward  renunciation  of  Sin  ?  Such  practi- 
cal fruits  Christ  regarded  as  glorifying  His  Father, 
and  rejected  the  disciples  that  called  him  Lord,  Lord, 
and  "  diiV  not  the  things  He  said.  And  the  rule  of 
the  Judgment  day  is  men's  doings,  the  practical 
effects  of  Faith  on  their  character,  wherever  life  was 


VIRTUE. 


79 


80  lengthened  as  to  give  scope  to  the  exhibitio-a  of  such 
effects.  "  Except  your  righteousness  exceed  the 
righteousness  of  the  Scribes  and  Pharisees,  yc  can  in 
no  case  enter  into  the  kingdom  of  Heaven,"  was 
Christ's  announcement  to  his  disciples  while  on  earth. 
Do  you  suppose  that  when  the  Heavens  restore  Him 
again  to  the  expectant  and  shuddering  earth,  in  the 
Last  Judgment,  He  will  come  to  retract  that  law  ?  Be 
ye  ready  for  its  inevitable  and  unfaltering  application. 
We  should  have  delighted  to  pursue  this  theme,  and 
show  how  the  Faith  of  Christ  has  benefited  the  indi- 
vidual, elevated  the  family,  emancipated  woman ; 
how  much,  even  where  not  fully  received  and  obeyed, 
it  has  awed  and  shamed  and  restrained  human  wick- 
edness :  but  our  time  forbids  us.  Are  you  the  pledged 
scholars  and  examples  of  this  Faith  ?  remember  it  is? 
not  to  be  a  barren  creed,  or  an  Antinomian  heresy,  a 
lying  form,  or  a  goodly  mask,  or  a  whited  sepulchre ; 
but  a  glowing,  up-growing,  fruit-bearing  reality.  To 
your  faith  add  "  Virtue." 


LECTURE  IV. 


KNOWLEDGE. 


«»  AND  TO  VIRTUE,  KNOWLEDGE." 

S  Peter,  i.  (. 


The  Apostle  bade  Christians  to  become  "  living 
epistles"  of  Christ.  And  with  what  an  impressive 
brilliancy  do  some  transcribe  and  publish  the  power 
and  glory  of  their  Saviour,  although  placed  in  circum- 
stances of  comparative  obscurity  and  penury.  Little 
indebted  it  may  be  to  this  world's  schools,  and  sharing 
but  in  scanty  measure,  the  world's  possessions,  yet  in 
their  illiterate  retirement  they  read  and  ponder  their 
Bible,  and  they  are  taught  of  the  Spirit  which  first 
indited  those  Scriptures,  and  trust  the  testimonies  of 
their  Grod  with  a  childlike  and  unquestioning  faith, 
and  adorn  that  faith  by  a  humble  and  blameless  vir- 
tue in  their  intercourse  with  their  fellow-men.  And 
although  they 

"  Just  know,  and  know  no  more,  their  Bible  true."  * 

yet  the  lowly  cottages  which  they  tenant,  and  the 
pallet  of  infirmity  and  disease  where  they  languish, 
are  schools  of  spiritual  profiting  to  all  who  may  visit 

*  Cowper. 


KNOWLEDGE.  81 

them.  How  radiant  and  mighty  would  be  the  churches 
of  Christ,  were  they  all  made  up  of  such  a  member- 
ship. How  much  of  the  scorn  which  the  ungodly  re- 
tort upon  the  admonitions  of  the  Christian, — how 
much  of  the  scepticism  that,  confessed  or  unconfessed, 
withstands  the  truth  as  it  is  in  Jesus,  would  be  at 
once  quelled  and  hushed  into  an  abashed  silence,  were 
but  the  Faith  of  Christ's  disciples  a  more  simple 
ethereal,  and  earnest  Faith,  and  their  virtue  in  th( 
home  and  by  the  way,  in  the  more  private  and  the 
more  public  relations  of  life,  only  a  more  vigorous, 
symmetrical,  and  earnest  virtue. 

And  having  this  faith  and  such  virtue,  it  might  be 
said :  "What  need  we  more  ?  But  here  end  not  the 
requirements  of  God's  word,  and  here  should  not  be 
stayed  the  aspirations  of  God's  servants.  It  is  well 
that  Christians  should,  by  their  eminence  in  the  prac- 
tice of  Christian  graces,  witness  for  Christ  where  they 
may  be  unable  to  write  or  preach  for  Him,  as  in  the 
days  of  Romish  persecution  in  England,  the  aged  dis- 
ciple whom  the  ecclesiastical  judges,  ere  her  martyr- 
dom, sought  to  perplex  by  captious  questions,  replied : 
"  I  cannot  argue  for  my  Saviour,  but  I  can  burn 
for  Him."  But  is  there  not,  beyond  the  testimony  of 
the  life  and  the  confession  of  the  lips,  and  the  seal  of 
the  death  even,  an  enlargement  and  illumination  of  the 
understanding,  due  alike  to  the  gospel  and  to  the  char- 
acter of  its  Divine  Author  ?  And  when  Faith  appre- 
hends cheerfully  the  Truth  of  God,  and  when  Virtue 
reflects  on  mankind  the  goodness  of  God,  so  Christian 
knowledge  comes  in  to  ponder  and  to  commend  the 
4* 


82  RELIGIOUS     PROGRESS. 

wisdom  of  God.  Faith  clasps  Truth  with  the  heart , 
Virtue  subordinates  to  it  the  life  ;  knowledge  erabathes 
with  it  the  intellect.  And  as  religion  demands  the 
consecration  of  the  entire  man,  so  has  it  made,  in  the 
instrumentalities  which  it  employs  and  in  the  influ- 
ence which  it  sheds,  provision  for  all  the  faculties  of 
his  soul,  and  so  the  intellect  as  well  as  the  conscience, 
the  understanding  of  the  man  no  less  than  his  affec- 
tions, are  summoned  to  develop  themselves  in  those 
wide  realms  of  the  Messiah's  dominion,  and  far-reach- 
ing vistas  of  duty  for  the  Messiah's  subjects  which 
God's  Providence  opens,  and  in  those  broad  pastures 
and  richest  mines  of  Revelation  which  the  Scriptures 
present.  Growth  in  grace  implies  an  advance  in  re- 
ligious knowledge,  no  less  than  an  increase  of  personal 
holiness.  Such  is  the  lesson  of  our  text.  "And  to 
virtue  knowledge." 

And  to  feel  the  significance  of  that  injunction,  let 
us  implore  the  aids  of  that  Divine  Spirit  whence  alone 
Cometh  the  knowledge  which  bringeth  salvation,  as  we 
consider 

I.  A  prejudice  here  rebuked  ; 

II.  The  grace  here  enjoined  ;  and 

III.  Its  order,  as  following  and  completing  the 
Christian  excellencies  which  precede  it. 

I,  There  is,  we  suppose,  then,  in  the  Church  of  God, 
as  well  as  in  society  generally,  a  disposition  to  exalt 
Practice  at  the  expense  of  Theory  ;  and  yet  all  prac- 
tice is  but  the  embodiment  of  some  theory.  There  is 
in  some  minds  a  disposition  to  mock  at  all  science, 
and  all  patient  and  thorough  thought  as  being  but  idle 


KNOWLEDGE.  83^ 

and  unprofitable  speculation.  Common  Sense  is  lauded 
at  the  expense  of  Study  and  Research.  The  laborer 
is  exalted  above, the  thinker,  and  the  man  of  exper- 
imental activity  is  pronounced  the  truly  useful,  whilst 
the  studious  and  reflecting  is  denounced  as  a  thriftless 
and  unprofitable  cumberer  of  the  earth,  over  which  he 
moves  in  lonely  and  quiet  meditation,  little  disposed,  and 
it  may  be,  also,  little  qualified,  to  uplift  his  voice  amid 
the  strife  and  din  of  the  world's  crowded  arena.  Bat 
Society  and  the  Christian  Church,  need  the  thinker  as 
much  as  they  require  the  laborer.  If  the  spade-man 
who  digs  the  canal  or  rears  the  embankment  of  the 
rail- road  be,  as  he  really  is,  a  most  profitable  servant, 
is  the  engineer  who  drew  the  line  and  ascertained  the 
level,  where  the  waters  might  liow  and  be  fed,  and 
where  the  rail-car  might  dart  unimpeded,  utterly  un- 
profitable  ?  If  the  hand  does  excellent  service  in  the 
body,  moving  quickly  as  it  does,  and  grasping  firmly, 
and  thrusting  vigorously,  is  there  no  room  and  no  need 
in  the  body  for  the  eye,  because  its  usefulness  is  quite 
of  another  kind,  as  it  holds  in  silence  and  fixedness 
its  place  in  its  ever  quiet  watch-tower,  neither  going 
out  of  its  own  nook,  nor  lifting  a  finger's  weight  of 
the  obstacle  or  burden  before  it  ?  It  is  well  for  the 
church  to  be  vigorously  and  practically  virtuous,  but 
is  there  no  intelligence  needed  to  direct,  and  to  cher- 
ish, and  to  diff"use  this  virtue  ?  It  was  not  fitting  that 
every  Christian  convert  should  write  epistles,  in  the 
days  of  the  first  Christians.  But  were  the  apostles 
therefore  profitless  when  so  employed  ?  It  is  not 
needed,  now,  that  every  disciple    become    a   Biblical 


84  RELIGIOUS     PROGRESS. 

critic,  or  write  a  commentary,  or  indite  a  body  of  the- 
ology ;  but  because  a  man  may  be  abundantly  useful 
without  undertaking  these  forms  of  ueligious  service, 
is  it  a  sound  inference,  or  is  it  merely  a  baseless  preju- 
dice, which  some  cherish,  when  they  would  teach 
that  commentaries,  and  criticism,  and  theology  are  all 
of  little  worth  to  the  cause  of  Christ  ?  There  is  in 
the  minds  of  some  eager  and  zealous  disciples  of  our 
Lord,  an  impatience  which  cannot  brook  the  applica- 
tion of  profound  thought,  and  spurns,  as  impertinent 
and  wasteful  delay,  what  is  really  honest  and  thorough 
examination.  They  demand  results,  forgetting  that 
results  require  processes  to  attain  them.  Every  sea- 
man is  not  expected  to  construct  his  own  nautical  ta- 
bles, or  every  miner  to  build  his  own  steam-engine,  that 
may  uplift  the  ore,  or  drain  off  the  superfluous  waters. 
Yet  without  the  aid  of  the  astronomer  and  the  ma- 
chinist, of  what  avail  would  be  the  practical  energy 
of  the  hardy  mariner,  or  the  begrimed  miner  toiling 
in  his  ever  dark  and  narrow  gallery  ?  So,  in  religion, 
a  just,  religious  practice  must  grow  out  of  just,  re- 
ligious principles.  And  although  a  simple  and  child- 
like Faith  may  readily  grasp  the  great  outlines  of 
these  principles,  it  requires  that  Faith  should  be  pa- 
tient, and  studious, — (it  requires  that  Faith  should  de- 
velop itself,  in  fact,  into  Knowledge,)  in  order  that 
these  principles  may  be  fully  understood  and  justly 
stated,  may  be  seen  in  their  due  position,  and  may  be 
held  in  their  just  proportion,  and  in  their  mutual  de- 
pendence and  symmetry.  It  required  days  and  nights 
of  profound  and  philosophical  research  for  Franklin  to 


KNOWLEDGE. 


85 


devise  the  rod  that  draws  from  the  thunder-cloud  its 
lightnings  harmlessly;  and  Chemistry  needed  its  years 
of  study,  ere  Sir  Humphrey  Davy  could  prepare  the 
safety-lamp,  which  was  to  guard  the  delver  in  the 
mines  from  their  perilous  explosions.  A  child,  or  the 
most  ignorant  ])easant,  may  bo  practically  benefited 
by  these  contrivances,  which  certainly  mere  ignorance 
could  never  have  invented.  So  in  the  labors  of  the 
churches  of  our  own  times, — are  not  we, — the  hum- 
blest and  most  obscure  laborers  of  us  all, — benefited 
by  the  iron  perseverance,  and  the  patient  acuteness 
with  which  God  enabled  some  great  and  leading  cham- 
pions of  His  gospel  to  ponder,  and  enunciate,  and  do- 
fend  the  truths  taught  in  that  G-ospel  ? 

2.  But  it  may  be  said  in  extenuation  of  the  preju- 
dice :  Is  it  not  in  the  learned  classes  that  most  here- 
sies have  had  their  origin  ?  We  allow  that  many 
who  have  misguided  their  thousands  have  been  strong 
in  the  lore  of  this  world.  Bat,  on  the  other  hand, 
.shall  we  be  told  that  the  founder  of  Mormonism,  and 
of  that  more  wide-spread  and  enduring  imposture, 
Mohammedanism,  were,  either  of  them,  learned  men  ? 
And  if,  in  other  forms  of  spiritual  delusion,  an  abused 
Learning  has  been  the  leader,  who,  it  may  be  asked, 
has  furnished  the  mass  of  the  proselytes  but  an  abused 
Ignorance  ?  If  ignorance  often  saves  a  man  from  the 
danger  of  being  a  teacher  in  heresy,  it  would  seem 
that  it  by  no  means  protects  him  from  the  possibility 
of  becoming  a  scholar  in  errors,  alike  preposterous  and 
ruinous.  But,  it  is  said.  Has  not  the  voice  of  Scrip- 
ture warned  us  against  "  oppositions  of  Science"  (or  in 


86  RELIGIOUS    PROGRESS. 

other  words,  knowledge)  "  falsely  so  called  ?"  Has  it 
not  lifted  aloud  its  protest,  that  "the  world,  by  wis- 
dom, knew  not  God,"  and  that  "  the  wisdom  of  this 
world  is  foolishness  with  G-od  ?"  Has  not  an  apostle 
cautioned  us,  that  knowledge  puffeth  up?  "Why 
then,  it  may  be  said,  should  the  humble  scholar  of 
prophets  and  apostles  covet  wisdom  and  knowledge  ? 
Let  us  remember,  that  all  this  is  but  God's  interdict 
against  science  or  knowledge  ^'■falsely  so  called  ;" — 
the  wisdom  that  is  of  this  world,  and  which  is  there- 
fore unreal  and  deceitful.  But  the  wisdom  coming 
from  above,  we  are  bidden  to  implore  and  to  expect. 
Of  knowledge,  genuine  and  celestial,  it  is  said,  that  it 
is  not  good  that  the  soul  be  without  it,  and  the  Most 
High  complains  that  His  ^^  ^people  perish  for  lack  of 
il.''^  It  was  the  guilt  of  the  Pharisees,  the  class  as- 
■suming  to  control  religious  opinion  in  their  age  and 
their  country,  that  they  took  away  from  their  nation 
the  key  of  knowledge,  and  that  thus  they  would  not 
let  the  multitudes  enter  the  way  of  salvation.  It  is 
made  the  pivot,  in  the  eternal  destinies  of  the  heathen 
dying  without  the  gospel,  that  they  have  turned  away 
from  that  ivhich  might  be  knoivn  of  God  in  the  works 
of  Nature  and  the  movements  of  Providence  ;  and 
this  wilful  shutting  of  the  eyes,  against  an  unwelcome 
knowledge  of  the  Divine  Nature  and  Divine  Goodness, 
seals  them  to  perdition.  No.  God's  word  does  not 
prohibit  the  endeavor  to  attain  true  knowledge.  It 
cautions  us  against  the  deceitful  splendors  of  a  false 
and  superficial  science — a  knowledge  wrongfully  so 
called,  consisting  but  of  dreams  and  shows, — a  knowl- 


KNOWLEDGE.  87 

edge  of  evil,  mainly  or  only,  that  would  nullify  Truth, 
and  banish  the  wisdom  of  the  skies,  to  give  her  abdi- 
cated throne  to  the  wisdom  which  is  earthly  and  sen- 
sual, and  devilish. 

II.  Now  our  text,  and,  in  full  harmony  with  it,  the 
entire  body  of  Divine  Scripture,  require  that  the 
Christian  profit  in  his  religious  course,  by  going  on 
from  faith  to  virtue,  and  from  virtue  to  knowledge. 
The  first  great  necessity  of  our  nature  is  that  we 
know  07(rselves, — that  we  learn  from  the  book  of  God 
our  origin  and  destiny, — the  story  of  our  Fall,  and  the 
story  yet  more  wondrous,  and  yet  more  glad,  of  our 
Redemption — that  we  accept  from  the  Scriptures  the 
explanation  of  that  moral  dislocation,  which  we  find 
in  our  own  nature,  and  of  that  intestine  warfare  of 
Reason  and  Appetite,  of  Duty  and  Desire,  under 
which  the  wisest  of  the  heathen  world  have  groaned, 
unrelieved  and  despairing.  But  thus  to  know  our- 
selves, is  the  nearest  and  most  necessary  and  most 
natural  of  all  subjects  of  research  ;  and  yet  how  dif- 
ficult to  man  unaided,  is  the  study,  and  how  rare  are 
any  deep  attainments  in  these  home-bred  mysteries  of 
our  nature.  But  to  have  a  just  and  safe  knowledge 
of  ourselves,  it  is  needful  that  we  know  our  God. 
Framed  by  Him  and  for  Him,  clinging  to  His  arm  by 
an  eternal  and  inevitable  dependence,  enveloped  and 
upheld  by  His  perpetual  and  omnipresent  Providence, — 
we  cannot  ascertain  the  moral  bearings,  or  calculate, 
so  to  speak,  the  latitude  and  longitude  of  our  own 
drifting  course  over  the  ocean  of  life  ;  but,  as  we  refer 
to  Him  whose  will  is  the  meridian  line  by  which  we 


88  RELIGIOUS     PROGRESS. 

estimate  the  position  of  all  beings,  and  whose  favor  is 
the  Light  and  central  Sun  of  our  moral  Life.  And 
knowing  ourselves,  anl  knowing  our  God  in  Scrip- 
ture, we  are  called  upon  (as  our  duty  and  station  in 
society  may  require  it,)  to  know  this  world, — that 
portion  of  it  called  Nature,  which  we  can  reach  and 
survey ;  to  know  that  course  of  events  in  man's  past 
generations,  and  that  march  of  the  Divine  purposes  in 
the  government  of  the  race  which  we  call  History ; 
and  to  know  Life,  or  those  arts,  and  occupations,  and 
relations,  and  human  laws,  and  local  customs,  that 
are  to  affect  us  in  the  discharge  of  our  duties  to  oui 
fellows :  making  an  Aquila,  serviceable  as  a  tent- 
maker,  a  Lydia,  an  upright  vender  of  purple,  an 
Eliezer,  an  honest  steward  of  his  master's  household, 
and  a  Daniel,  the  sagacious  and  intrepid  administrator 
of  a  mighty  empire.  AVe  are  required  to  know  Man, 
not  only  as  he  should  be,  and  as  in  his  original  inno- 
cence he  ivas,  but  man  as  he  is,  in  his  selfishness, 
craftiness,  and  wretchedness,  and  yet,  withal,  in  the 
long  and  tangled  train  of  all  his  susceptibilities,  and 
his  capabilities,  and  his  hopes  and  his  fears,  his  sensi- 
tive conscience,  his  grovelling  desires  and  his  soaring 
aspirations,  and  his  kindlier  affections, — all  the  wrecks 
of  Eden,  that  drift  yet  along  the  foaming  and  roaring 
stream  of  the  world's  strifes  and  the  world's  sins — 
relics  of  what  Earth  was  ere  Sin  trode  it,  intimations 
of  what  Earth  would  be  had  grace  not  intervened,  and 
of  what  Hell  will  be  where  grace  is  rejected,  and 
mementoes  of  what  Man  may  yet  be,  when  grace  shall 


KNOWLEDGE.  89 

have  done  its  restoring  and  renewing  work  upon  him, 
as  made  complete  in  righteousness. 

2.  Is  there  not  here  a  field  suffieiently  wide  for  all 
of  power,  and  all  of  leisure  that  any  of  us  can  com- 
mand ?  It  was  not  the  Scripture  that  proclaimed  Ig- 
norance the  mother  of  Devotion.  On  the  contrary, 
religion  has  ever  been  the  truest  friend  of  real  knowl- 
edge. It  calls  man  indeed  to  acquire  that  knowledge 
in  another  order  than  that  which  an  unrenewed 
and  revolted  world  practise  and  commend.  It  bids  us 
seek,  first,  the  things  of  first  moment — the  pardon  of 
sin,  the  renewal  of  the  heart,  and  the  favor  and  the 
kingdom  of  God.  It  bids  us,  in  the  spirit  of  a  sound 
philosophy,  and  of  a  science  celestial  and  sure,  to  go 
for  our  first  principles  to  the  first  authority — Grod.  It 
makes  His  revelations  paramount  to  all  the  teachings 
of  man.  Grod's  assertions  as  to  the  past,  the  present, 
or  the  future,  in  regard  to  the  character  and  destiny 
of  the  race,  must  here  override  all  the  philosophies 
and  all  the  conjectures  of  the  Schools  It  is  so  in  Re- 
ligious Truth.  It  is  so  in  Physical  Science.  To  read 
the  tangled  maze  of  this  world's  chaotic  history.  Re- 
ligion lends  us  the  clue  of  the  Divine  Providence. 
The  first  successful  attempt  to  write  a  Universal 
History,  was  made  by  Bossuet.  Holding  this  clue,  he 
found  Order,  and  Progress,  and  Harmony,  where,  to 
all  scholars  who  wanted,  or  who  spurned  that  guiding 
thread,  there  seems  but  wild  uproar  and  a  seething 
chaos  of  change  without  Progress  and  without  Law. 
It  is  no  arrogance  to  predict,  that  no  satisfactory  Uni- 
versal History  can  be  written,  except  by  the  scholars 


90  RELIGIOUS     PROGRESS. 

who,  like  Bossuet  and  Miiller,  take  up  that  same  clue, 
and  see  in  the  wild  and  vast  field  of  history,  every- 
where, the  footprints  of  a  supervisory  and  sleepless 
Providence,  and  who  rear  at  every  era,  and  at  each  stile 
in  the  track  of  ages,  an  Ebenezer  to  the  G-od  hitherto 
helping  the  race  toward  the  final  goal  of  His  own 
sure  and  good  purposes. 

Our  first  business  is,  then,  to  know  by  earnest  and 
prayerful  study  of  the  Scriptures,  ourselves — our  sin 
and  our  duty,  our  own  conversion  and  the  means  of 
our  continued  sa notification.  That  Scripture  must  be 
studied  in  prayer  for  the  influences  of  the  Spirit.  Led 
of  Him,  the  Spirit  of  Truth,  into  all  truth; — brought 
into  friendly  and  even  filial  relations  with  that  God, 
the  laws  of  whose  works  make  Science,  and  whose 
human  subjects  act  out  History,  and  conjecture  or 
dream  what  they  call  Philosophy — and  invent  Art,  and 
establish  Government,  we  shall,  G-od-guided,  study 
Government,  and  Art,  and  Philosophy,  and  History, 
and  Science  and  Revelation  in  their  due  relations  to 
each  other.  We  shall,  then,  according  to  the  sublime 
language  of  a  Christian  philosopher  of  France,*  "  See 
God  in  all  things,  and  all  things  in  God." 

3.  Now,  many  Christians  content  themselves  with 
the  fragmentary  and  alphabetical  knowledge  of  re- 
ligious truth,  which  they  had  acquired  in  their  first 
exercise  of  a  new-found  Faith  ;  and  they  seem  to  sup- 
pose it  idle,  or  even  presumptuous,  to  go  further.  They 
dread  an  unsanctified  science,  and  they  do  justly  in 
dreading  it.     It  is  atheistic  or  Pantheistic,  arrogant 

*  Malebranche. 


KNOWLEDGE.  91 

and  blasphemous  ;  and  irrational,  as  well  as  irrdiginns, 
because  scouting  the  facts  and  edicts  of  the  Snprenio 
and  Creative  Reason,  God.  They  look  upon  History 
as  an  old  and  profitless  calendar.  They  forget,  that  it 
is  a  register  of  Providence,  the  story,  how  a  AVise  God 
is  governing  the  world  that  had  forgotten  Him,  and 
that  all  its  events  have  looked  forward  or  backward  to 
the  Cross  of  Calvary,  and  speed  onward  the  march  nf 
the  race  to  the  foot  of  that  Great  White  Throne,  where 
the  Sujferer  of  the  Cross  is  to  be  the  Judge  of  tho 
world,  and  the  unraveller  of  all  its  mysteries,  con- 
densing, closing,  and  appending  the  infallible  Index  to 
all  its  histories,  all  its  incidents,  and  all  its  actors. 
They  forget,  that  to  the  pure  all  things  are  pure,  and 
that  a  mind  fast  rooted  in  religious  principle,  and  con- 
trolled by  the  fear  and  love  of  God,  may  move  un- 
harmed through  all  the  fields  of  human  bewilderment 
and  depravity,  uninfected  by  the  errors  which  surround 
it,  and  moved  only  to  pity,  and  zeal,  and  love  of  the 
truth,  by  all  the  revolting  wickedness  that  it  sees  dis- 
played in  the  hearts,  and  lives,  and  schemes  of  mankind. 
The  age  is  one  of  Physical  Science.  Far  as  this 
science  is  just  and  sound,  it  will  not  contradict  God's 
revelation,  for  one  God  made  both.  But  scientific  men 
have  in  all  ages  been  prone  to  generalize  too  rapidly, 
and  have  too  oft  asserted  their  own  theory,  as  if  it 
were  God's  scientific  law.  Here  has  been  the  collision. 
And  men,  holding  lightly  and  reluctantly  God's  word, 
and  clutching  eagerly  and  tenaciously  any  word,  how- 
ever rash,  that  promised  plausi])ly  to  impugn  God's 
utterances,  have  dropped  their  Bible,  and  adored  their 


92  RELiaiOUS     PROGRESS. 

Philoso]ihy.  Investigation  went  on.  The  theory,  so 
bold  and  symmetrical,  was  found  to  have  exceptions 
The  exceptions  multiplied.  The  theory  was  first  sus- 
pected— then  scouted — and  ultimately  left  to  float 
away,  a  dishonored  wreck, — and,  after  the  exercise  of 
a  little  patience,  it  was  seen  that,  back  of  the  wreck, 
loomed  aloft,  intact  and  entire,  the  book  and  the  throne 
of  Jehovah.  So  has  it  been — so  shall  it  be — so  must 
it  be — by  the  will  of  the  world's  Maker.  The  schools 
of  Science,  no  less  than  the  halls  of  Empire,  have  had 
their  Nebuchadnezzars,  from  whose  fall,  partial  and 
temporary,  or  final  and  irretrievable,  must  come  out 
afresh  the  testimony,  once  uttered  in  Babylon,  that 
the  God  of  Israel  is  one,  "  whose  dominion  is  an  ever- 
lasting dominion,  and  his  kingdom  is  from  generation 
to  generation" — "  all  whose  works  are  truth,  and  his 
ways  judgment,  and  those  that  walk  in  pride  he  is  able 
to  abase."* 

4.  It  is  not  the  Religion  of  an  open  Bible,  and  of  a 
free,  unfettered  gospel  that  asks  for  the  Prohibitory 
Index,  and  for  the  rituals  of  devotion  in  a  dead  lan- 
guage;  and  that  would  make  religious  knowledge, 
like  Braminism  or  Phariseeism,  the  patrimony  and 
monopoly  of  a  favored  caste.  As  being  Grod's  revela- 
tion to  all,  the  pure  gospel  asks, — it  brooks, — it 
challenges,  the  scrutiny  of  all.  No  penal  code,  no 
flaming  Auto  da  Fe,  no  band  of  fierce  and  steel-clad 
crusaders,  no  Inquisition  frowning  in  sanctimonious 
despotism  over  an  affrighted  land,  were  made  by 
apostles  the  guardians  of  Faith  and  of  Evangelical 
*  Daniel,  c.  iv. 


KNOWLEDGE.  93 

Purity.  The  £Tospel  asks  to  be  sifted.  It  stands  up, 
amid  the  light  of  the  nineteenth  century,  nut  a  bed- 
riddtMi,  or  a  superannuated  faith — but  the  Truth,  en- 
tirely and  evermore, — the  Truth  ever  young,  for  its 
years  arc  eternal — and  in  its  origin  as  old  as  God,  it 
can  no  more  become  obsolete,  than  can  He,  the  Un- 
changeable and  the  Everlasting. 

5.  Meanwhile,  let  us  say,  that  we  have  no  fellowship 
with  those  views  of  religious  truth,  which  represent  its 
great  outlines,  and  its  elementary  doctrines,  as  capable 
of  amendment  from  the  influence  of  social  progress 
and  human  science.  As  the  research  of  navigators 
and  travellers  may  make  geography  more  perfect  in 
its  minor  details,  but  can  by  no  means  alter  its  main 
boundaries,  so  is  it  with  religious  truth.  Its  continents 
and  head-lands,  the  line  of  its  coast,  and  its  great 
havens,  no  possible  advancement  in  religious  knowledge 
can  make  other  than  they  are;  whilst,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  developments  of  Providence,  and  the  unroll- 
ing volume  of  Prophecy,  and  the  descending  influences 
of  the  Spirit,  and  the  growth  of  Holiness,  and  the 
more  general  diffusion  of  scriptural  knowledge,  may 
alter  our  general  views  as  to  the  nature  and  proportion 
of  some  of  the  lesser  details  of  this  gospel,  its  creeks, 
its  mountain  heights,  and  its  tracts  yet  comparatively 
uncultivated  and  unbroken.*  But  Theology  admits 
of  no  uninspired  Columbus,  the  discoverer  of  a  New 
World  of  religious  truth.  Its  sphere  and  orb  was 
completed,  long  since,  by  the  inspired  apostles  of  Him 
"who  brought  life  and  immortality  to  light." 
*  See  Appendix,  Note  D. 


94  RELIGIOUS     PROGRESS. 

III.  And  now  we  have  reached  the  concluding  por- 
tion of  our  remarks  :  The  order  of  Christian  knowledge 
as  following  and  tending  to  guard  and  crown  faith 
and  virtue.  Why  should  it  be  set  here,  and  not  at  an 
earlier  place,  in  the  rank  of  Christian  excellencies  ? 

1.  We  suppose  the  reason  to  have  been  this.  It 
was  to  remind  us  of  a  great  truth,  that  Practical 
Obedience,  or  Virtue,  is  necessary,  if  we  would  gain 
any  great  advancement  in  Christian  knowledge.  This 
was  the  law  of  Grod's  school  in  the  times  of  the  ancient 
Psalmist:  "  A  good  understanding  have  all  they  that 
do  his  commandments."*  Not  only,  is  such  obedience 
an  evidence  of  a  sound  understanding  ;  but  it  is  also  a 
safeguard  for  it.  No  man  can  keep  a  healthy  and 
sound  intellect  who  is  perpetually  sporting  with  known 
error,  and  wallowing  in  known  iniquity.  The  very 
conscience  may  become  defiled,  and  the  eyes  of  the 
soul  contract  blindness,  by  disuse  and  misuse.  So  our 
Saviour  taught  the  Jews:  "If  any  man  will  do  his 
will,  he  shall  know  of  the  doctrine,  whether  it  be  of. 
God  or  whether  I  speak  of  myself."!  We  must  use 
the  light  already  given,  if  we  would  win  more.  To 
him  that  hath,  it  shall  be  given.  On  the  other  hand, 
we  cannot  long  keep  "  the  truth  prisoner  in  unrighteous- 
ness." It  pines,  shrivels,  and  at  last  expires.  A  truth 
disobeyed,  is  likely  to  become,  ere  long,  a  truth  dis- 
csteemed ;  and  a  truth  disesteemed,  will  very  readily 
sink  into  a  truth  disbelieved.  Virtue  must  precede 
knowledge.  It  is  the  holy,  who  are  led  into  the 
audience  hall   and  the  council  chamber  of  the   Most 

*   Psalm  cxi.  10.  f  John,  vii.  17. 


KNOWI-F,  DGK. 


95 


Holv.  Truth,  when  it  is  disregarded,  frets,  irritates, 
and  perhaps  at  last  cauterizes  the  conscience,  and  so 
slips  away  from  the  memory  ;  shaken  off,  because  not 
rightly  used  to  promote  a  virtuous  and  honest  alle- 
giance to  the  giver  of  Truth.  So  it  was,  that,  in 
Patriarchal  times,  as  Panl  teaches  us,  Idolatry  and 
Polytheism  began.  Men  lilvcd  not  to  retain  God  in 
their  knowledge,  and  He  went  out  of  their  intellect, 
where  he  was  not  welcomed  and  adored.  The  absence 
of  Virtue,  procured  the  abolition  of  knowledge.  If  a 
school  or  a  tribe  affect  and  woo  Moral  Darkness,  the 
Sun  of  Truth  and  Righteousness  may,  far  as  they  are 
concerned,  go  down  whilst  it  is  yet  noon. 

2.  Virtue  was,  again,  made  to  precede  Knowledge^ 
in  order  to  protect  agaijist  a  great  error,  that  began  to 
be  promulgated  ere  the  first  apostles  had  quitted  the 
arena  of  the  Church  militant,  for  the  palms  and 
thrones  of  the  Church  triumphant.  G-nosticism,  or 
the  system  of  knowledge, — for  such  is  the  meaning 
of  its  arrogant  name — claimed  in  the  early  Christian 
Church,  the  highest  prerogatives.  The  Apostle  John 
seems  especially  to  aim  many  of  his  statements 
against  it.  It  sought  to  plant  knowledge,  or  the  teach- 
ings of  its  own  wild  and  foul  philosophy,  as  the  very 
basis  of  Faith.  Much  of  the  Rationalism  and  Panthe- 
ism of  our  own  times,  proceeds  on  the  same  most  false 
and  most  fatal  principle.  Instead  of  going  out  of  our- 
selves, to  find,  by  Faith,  in  God's  testimonies,  what 
'  He  is  and  what  we  ourselves  are,  and  to  obtain  the 
recuperative  grace  that  sanctifies  the  heart  and  so  en- 
lightens the  intellect,  this  system  (as  irrational  as  it 


96  RELIGIOUS     PROGRESS. 

is  impious)  drags  the  God  and  the  oracle  and  the  rev- 
elation into  man's  self,  makes  its  own  purblind  reason, 
and  its  own  hasty  and  crude  utterances,  in  the  natural 
state  of  alienation  from  God  and  morrd   blindness,  ihe 
law  of  judgment,  to  God  and  to  His  teachings.      And 
thus,  our   folly  is  to   control  God's  wisdom  ;   and  the 
Most  High  is  to  remake  Himself  and  His  revelation 
into  our  likeness  and  to  our  arrogant  liking.     Piety, 
instead  of  being  a  regeneration  of  the  man   into  the 
forfeited  image  of  his  God,  is  to  be  a  regeneration  and 
a  recasting  of  the  only  Wise  God,  the   Holy  One   of 
Israel,  into  the  mould  of  man,  the  frail,  the   erring, 
and  the  dying.     And  yet,  what  harmony  is  there  be- 
tween the   several  shrines  and  oracles  of  this  reason, 
thus  God-dethroning ; — as  that  reason  works  in  me, 
and  as  that   same  reason  works,  in  contrary  results 
and  utterances,  in  my  neighbor?     No — such  are  the 
changes  made  by  successive  philosophers,  and  by  con- 
tending heretics,  in  the  knowledge  thus  enunciated  as 
paramount  to  Revelation,  that  after  a  time  the  mutual 
contradiction  produces  a  universal  scepticism.     Thus, 
instead  of    knowledge,    as    seen    exploding    Religion ; 
Religion,  and  knowledge  itself,  are  replaced  by  utter 
Ignorance,  in  the  matters  of  the  soul  and  of  eternity. 
"  Thus   saith  the   Lord"  is  the  emphatic  announce- 
ment of  Scripture  ;   and   a  sound  Reason  bows  to  the 
veracity  and  competency  of  the  Divine  Oracle.    Against 
that  voice  of  thunder  comes  up,  from  these   teachers, 
in  shrill  and  petulant  contradiction,  the  "  Perhaps" — 
or  the  hesitating  "  Who  knows  ?"     And  man  is  ex- 
pected to  congratulate  himself  on  the  exchange  of  the 


KNOWLEDGE.  97 

old,  the  clear  and  celestial  sun-light,  for  this  earth- 
born  gloom.  Now,  on  the  principles  of  reason  itself, 
it  is  evident,  that,  as  to  the  eternity  past,  and  the 
eternity  to  come,  we,  a  race  who  are  but  of  a  day, — 
who  yesterday  were  not  here,  and  to-morrow  will  have 
gone  hence, — cannot  know  anything,  but  as  the  God 
who  alone  "  was,  and  is,  and  is  to  be,"  shall  declare 
it.  To  forswear  Faith,  then,  is  to  proclaim,  as  to  all 
that  wide  and  momentous  expanse  and  abyss  of 
knowledge,  an  edict  against  the  race  of  irreclaimable 
nescience,  of  perpetual  infancy,  of  hopeless  and  peren- 
nial stultification.  It  is  taking  refuge  from  the  pa- 
rentage and  control  of  Heaven,  by  suing  out,  against 
our  kind,  a  decree  of  irremediable  idiocy,  and  utter 
orphanage. 

"When  Nahash,  the  Ammonite,  came  against  the 
city  of  Jabesh-gilead,*  he  made  the  proposition,  that 
all  its  inhabitants  should  have  each  his  right  eye 
thrust  out,  in  sign  of  subjection  and  vassalage.  There 
was  a  natural  reluctance  to  accept  terms  so  painful 
and  degj-ading.  "Wliy  should  we  be  required,  instead 
of  the  blessed  and  divinely-warranted  affirmations  of 
Scripture,  to  accept  these  sheltering  negations  of  a 
Philosophy  of  Universal  Doubt  ?  It  wo^ild  fain  make 
Human  Nature,  suicidally  to  become  its  own  Jabesh- 
gilead,  by  demanding  that  we  sacrifice  not  one  eye 
but  both, — not  the  bodily  vision,  but  the  nobler  and 
inner  powers  of  the  soul ;  and  would  proclaim,  as  the 
irreversible  law  of  our  nature,  the  law  of  blindness — 
blindness  to  all  eternity,  blindness  to  God,  blindness  to 
*  1  Samuel,  xL 

5 


98  RELIGIOUS     PROGRESS. 

duty,  and  blindness  to  truth  ;  and  would  it  not  be 
eventually  blindness  to  virtue,  and  blindness  to  hap- 
piness, as  well  ?  Such  science,  falsely  so  called,  is, 
then,  a  knowledge,  that  ultimately  resolves  itself  into 
the  absence  of  all  knowledge.  "  Professing  them- 
selves to  be  wise,  they  become  fools^  Their  scepti- 
cism, like  the  imprisoned  spirit  in  Eastern  fable, 
when  released  from  its  cell,  soars  and  swells,  and 
rarefies,  till  it  becomes  a  formless  pillar  of  smoke,  van- 
ishing into  thin  air, — a  mere  shapeless,  shadowy  and 
intangible  Negation. 

3.  The  gospel  does  not  proscribe  knowledge :  it 
requires  it.  It  makes  knowledge  possible  to  the 
savage,  by  awakening  aspirations  where  before  w.ere 
only  appetites;  and  by  letting  out,  on  every  side,  the 
horizon  of  his  cribbed  and  narrow  intellect,  into  the 
wide  eternity  and  the  high  infinity  around  and  above 
him.  Its  Missions  have  carried,  with  a  saintly  hero- 
ism, the  School  and  the  Press  into  the  snow-hut  of  the 
Greenlander,  into  the  mud-built  kraal  of  the  Hot- 
tentot, and  into  the  cabins  overshadowed  by  the  bread- 
fruit tree  of  the  luxurious  islands  that  gem  the  Pacific, 
— it  has  gone,  thus,  to  Ashantee,  where  the  graves  of 
the  dead  are  watered  by  human  sacrifices,  and  to  New 
Zealand,  where  the  cannibal  prepared  human  flesh  as 
his  choicest  banquet.  It  not  only  patronizes  and  diffuses 
knowledge.  It  classifies  it,  as  humanity  unaided  can- 
not do  it.  The  mere  scholar  puts  subordinate  qualifi- 
cations and  accomplishments  into  a  superior  place; 
and  sacrifices  the  indispensable  to  the  trivial,  postpon- 
ing to  the  many  things  that,  at  best,  are  but  helpful, 


KNOWLEDGE.  99 

the  "  One  thing  that  is  needful."  The  Bible  puts 
the  necessary  before  the  convenient,  and  the  ethereal 
and  the  eternal  before  the  animal  and  the  temporal. 
It  seeks,  first,  the  kingdom  of  Grod.  And  does  it 
wisely  in  this  ?  Hear  the  dying  Grotius,  with  all  his 
diversified  stores  of  knowledge,  and  his  wide  and  con- 
summate scholarship,  lamenting  on  his  death-bed,  that 
he  had  not,  like  his  humble  and  illiterate  friend,  the 
pif>u."»  John  Uri,  given  his  days  more  exclusively  to  the 
Bible  and  to  God.  Hear  the  dying  Selden,  the  com- 
peer and  contemporary  of  Grotius,  after  a  life  of  active 
and  enduring  influence,  as  a  legislator,  and  a  scholar, 
and  a  patriot,  with  all  the  honors  of  a  wondrous  erudi- 
tion, as  wielded  by  the  vigor  of  a  masculine  intellect, 
clustering  around  him,  yet  declaring  that  of  all  the 
learned  tomes  and  ancient  manuscripts  which  he  had 
read,  none  brought  him  comfort  and  light  like  those 
words  of  the  apostle  :  "  For  the  grace  of  God  that 
bringeth  salvation  hath  appeared  to  all  men,  teaching 
us,  that,  denying  ungodliness  and  worldly  lusts,  we 
should  live  soberly,  righteously,  and  godly,  in  this 
present  world  ;  looking  for  that  blessed  hope,  and  the 
glorious  appearing  of  the  great  God  and  our  Saviour, 
Jesus  Christ ;  who  gave  Himself  for  us,  that  he  might 
redeem  us  from  all  iniquity,  and  purify  unto  Himself 
a  peculiar  people,  zealous  of  good  works."*  And  does 
not  your  own  heart,  in  your  better  hours,  judge  as  do 
the  dying;  and  is  not  the  science  of  salvation  felt, 
at  such  times,  to  be  above  all  price,  and  above  all 
parallel  ?  Thus  giving  to  the  various  branches  of 
*  Titus,  iL  11—14. 


100  RELIGIOUS     PROGRESS. 

knowledge  their  appropriate  place  and  due  proportion 
of  honor  and  precedency,  the  gospel  uses  knowledge 
for  the  defence  and  diffusion  of  this  faith.  See  this 
gospel  irradiated  by  the  labors  of  a  Boyle,  a  Pascal, 
and  a  Newton.  See  God  selecting  a  Paul,  the  most 
learned  of  the  apostles,  to  be  the  chief  writer  of  the 
New  Testament.  See,  in  the  Reformation,  the  at- 
tainments of  a  Luther  and  a  Melancthon,  a  Zuingle 
and  a  Calvin,  a  Ridley  and  a  Cranmer,  made  subsid- 
iary to  the  vindication  of  Truth.  See  in  modern 
Missions  the  usefulness  and  glory  of  consecrated  learn- 
ing in  a  William  Carey  and  a  Herny  Martyn,  a  Mor- 
rison and  a  Judson  ;  and  is  it  not  evident,  that,  what- 
ever else  the  gospel  be,  it  is  not  the  patron  or  the  par- 
asite of  Ignorance  ? 

4.  Physical  Science  in  our  day  has  made  rapid 
progress.  Religion  frowns  not  on  it.  But  far  as 
Physical  Science  claims  to  be  paramount  and  sufficient 
and  exclusive,  it  has  usurped  honors  that  are  not  its 
due.  It  would,  in  so  doing,  treat  man  as  a  being  of 
mere  bodily  organs,  without  conscience,  without  a  G-od, 
and  without  an  eternity ;  and  in  so  regarding  our  race 
it  robs  and  degrades  us.  Religious  knowledge  comes 
in  to  prevent  the  degradation,  and  to  denounce  the 
usurpation :  and  to  supply  as  she  alone  can  the  re- 
quisite aliment  and  scope  for  the  cravings  and  inex- 
tinguishable wants  of  man's  soul — his  higher  and 
spiritual  organization.  Political  Economy  is  another 
favorite  form  of  science,  in  our  century  and  land. 
Far  as  it  abjures  moral  economy,  or  man's  subor- 
dination in  the  getting  and  using  of  wealth,  to  the 


KNOWLEDGE.  101 

law  of  brotherly  Charity  and  of  Piety,  so  far,  here  again, 
Religious  Knowliulgc  comes  in  to  remedy  the  deficiency, 
and  to  right  the  wrong.  Political  Enfranchisement  or 
the  recovery  of  the  rights  of  the  masses — is  another 
most  popular  subject  of  thought  and  debate,  flinging 
its  M'atchwords,  like  flaming  fire-brands,  over  the 
breadth  of  Christendom.  But  when  was  Humanity  so 
elevated,  as  when  the  Creator  assumed  its  likeness  in 
Bethlehem  ?  When  was  human  misery  so  comforted, 
as  when  its  heaviest  woe  was  dropped  into  the  cup  of 
the  Crucified  on  Calvary?  How  is  Fraternity  to  be 
expounded  and  established,  but  by  bringing  men  to 
look  on  themselves,  as  being  in  common  amenable  to 
the  Last  Judgment,  and  as  being  also  in  common 
interested  in  the  Great  Propitiation  ?  Liberty — is 
that  a  matter  of  laws  merely,  and  of  prisons, — of  the 
body  and  its  locomotion,  so  much  as  it  is  of  the  soul, 
and  its  enslaving  passions,  and  its  earthward  and 
grovelling  appetites,  and  its  debasing  superstitions,  and 
its  unappeasable  fears,  and  its  intolerable  despair? 
And  where  is  there  true  emancipation  from  the  bon- 
dage of  these,  beside  that  proclaimed  by  the  Holy 
Spirit,  when  that  Spirit  comes  down  upon  the  Re- 
deemer's accepted  and  atoning  sacrifice,  as  sent  from 
that  Redeemer's  celestial  and  sovereign  Throne  ?  Where 
the  Spirit  of  the  Lord  is,  there  is  liberty — the  liberty 
wherewith  Christ  maketh  free. 

The  gospel  it  is  then  that  gives  the  best  knowledge ; 
ascertains  the  relative  rank  and  worth  of  all  knowledge  ; 
popularizes,  diffuses,  and    defends  it;  and    above  all 


102  RELIGIOUS    PROGRESS. 

gives  to  man,  the  sufferer,  the  knowledge  of  the 
Consoler  ;  and  to  man,  the  sinner,  the'revelation  of  the 
atonement ;  and  to  the  groping  captive  of  sin  and  heir 
of  the  pit,  announces  Liberty  and  Holiness,  citizenship 
in  Heaven  and  sonship  with  Grod.  That  Saviour  of 
whom  prophets  and  apostles  testified  is  the  Ruler  of  all 
worlds.  "We  honor  him  best,  when  meekly,  reverently, 
and  diligently,  we  store,  with  all  true  and  fitting  knowl- 
ledge,  the  souls  he  has  ransomed,  discern  his  glory  in 
all  his  works,  and  seek  his  scrutiny  and  benediction 
upon  all  our  tasks.  We  obey  him  by  seeking  every- 
where to  diffuse  that  gospel,  which  is  effectually  to 
end  among  the  nations  the  dominion  of  Error  and 
Ignorance.  We  bless  the  race,  and  serve  the  Redeemer 
of  that  race,  by  striving  to  wreathe  each  discovery  and 
each  invention,  all  art  and  all  science,  into  harmonious 
and  devout  subordination  around  that  redeeming  Cross, 
whence  radiates  the  world's  chiefest  truth  and  its  only 
hope  of  everlasting  life.  And  of  the  stores  of  wisdom 
which  the  Spirit  unseals  in  the  work  and  gifts  of  the 
Saviour,  eternity  will  be  but  evolving  continually  new 
wonders  and  glories.  The  knowledge  merely  of  earth 
will  not  bear  transportation  into  the  world  beyond  the 
grave ;  or  becomes  obsolete  and  worthless  there.  But 
the  knowledge  of  Christ,  is  a  treasure  whose  value 
Death  only  the  more  highly  enhances ;  and  Heaven 
evermore  but  the  more  clearly  through  its  long  ages 
reveals,  and  extols  and  adores  "  the  love  of  Christ 
which  passeth  knowledge." 

Far  as  any  Christian  overlooks  Christ's  interest  in 
this  present  world,  as  being  the  Creator  of  all  its  ma- 


KNOWLEDGE.  103 

terial  wonders  and  of  all  the  laws  of  Nature  so  called ; 
and  overlooks  Christ's  interest  in  the  history  of  its  na- 
tions, as  being  their  Covenanted  Sovereign,  by  his  per- 
petual Providence,  overlapping  and  permeating  and 
controlling  all  their  transactions ;  and  overlooks  Christ's 
interest  in  the  social  blamelessness  and  usefulness  of 
his  disciples,  in  their  appointed  day  and  station,  as 
being  the  light  and  salt  of  the  world  ;  so  far  that  fol- 
lower of  the  Saviour  comes  short  of  the  glory  of  his 
Master,  and  of  the  "  knowledge"  that  should  guard 
his  faith,  and  crown  his  virtue.  And  in  the  knowl- 
edge of  highest  worth,  in  acquaintance  with  his  own 
heart,  and  with  his  Father's  word,  and  with  his 
Saviour's  love,  it  is  the  privilege  and  the  duty  of  each 
Christian  to  become  daily  more  versed.  He  will  thus 
be  a  delighted  student  in  that  school,  where  angels 
are  his  fellow-disciples,  where  the  lessons  are  of  un- 
mingled  and  unchangeable  truth,  and  where  God  is 
himself  the  Teacher.  "  Who  teacheth  like  Him,"  re- 
newing, assimilating,  blessing,  and  finally  translating 
to  higher  than  earthly  scenes,  and  better  than  mortal 
associations,  all  those  who  are  learners  at  His  feet  ? 


LECTURE  V. 


TEMPERANCE. 


"akb  to  knowledge,  temperance." 

2  Peter,  i.  S. 


And  what  is  the  Temperance  here  enjoined  upon  the 
Christian  ?  Is  the  same  word,  when  the  enemies  of 
drunkenness  have  inscribed  it  upon  the  banners  of 
their  blessed  and  peaceful  crusade,  clothed  in  their 
application  of  it  with  all  the  rich  fulness  of  meaning 
which  belongs  to  this  scriptural  term  ?  Their  quiet 
conquests  are,  indeed,  thrice  blessed ;  but  does  the 
man  who  aids  in  them  necessarily  fulfil  to  its  utmost 
extent,  the  requirements  of  our  text  ?  We  answer  : 
the  ordinary  use  of  this  word,  by  them  and  by  others, 
conveys,  as  we  believe,  but  a  fragment  of  the  sense 
which  the  Holy  Grhost  intended  us  to  attach  to  Chris- 
tian temperance.  To  save  himself,  and  to  rescue 
others  from  the  miseries  and  the  sins  of  the  drunkard, 
the  member  of  a  Temperance  Society  consents  to  ab- 
stinence from  all  that  can  intoxicate.  On  the  ground 
of  Christian  expediency,  a  religious  man  thus  may 
abridge  certain  of  his  enjoyments,  and  invite  others 
so  to  guard  themselves.  It  is  a  hedge  about  his  path 
and  home,  and  about  the  path  and  home  of  his  neigh- 


TEMPERANCE.  105 

bors.  It  is  a  pledge  against  the  maddening  bowl 
and  its  brutalizing  influence.  But  the  temperance  of 
the  apostle  goes  much  further.  It  refers  not  to  the 
beverage  only,  but  to  viands  as  well.  It  denounces 
not  only  the  death  in  the  goblet,  but  the  death  in  the 
charger,  the  profuse  feeder,  no  less  than  the  insatiate 
drinker.  It  inculcates  upon  the  disciple,  purity  and 
restraint  in  all  his  gratifications.  The  word,  which 
the  apostle  here  uses,  is  explained  by  one  Grreek  writer 
as  "  self-discipline,''''*  and  by  another,t  as  being  "  ab- 
stinence from  evil,''''  as  from  excess  in  food,  drink 
or  enjoyment.  The  elements  of  the  original  word, 
imply  a  holding  in  or  reining  back  that  is  imposed 
upon  man's  natural  appetites.  The  Psalmist  speaks 
of  the  horse  yet  scarce  tamed  from  his  fierceness,  the 
fiery  barb  of  the  desert,  as  needing  control,  "  whose 
mouth  must  be  held  in  with  bit  and  bridle,  lest  they 
come  near  unto  thee."1:  The  word  selected  by  the  in- 
spired writer,  here,  seems  to  involve  this  metaphor  of 
curbing  or  bridling.  Man's  desires  are  like  impetuous 
coursers,  champing  the  bit,  and  needing  to  be  kept 
back  by  Reason,  and  Conscience,  and  Religion.  These 
appetencies  are  like  mettled  and  fiery  steeds,  that  re- 
quire for  their  safe  guidance  the  wary  eye  and  the 
firm  hand  of  sober  Restraint.  Now,  Temperance  is 
the  curb,  bringing  into  subjection  all  those  passions  of 
human  nature  that  tend  to  voluptuousness,  just  as  Pa- 
tience and  Meekness  check  and  keep  under  the  fiercer 
passions    or  those   tending   to  violence.     "  Let  your 

*  Hesychius,  in  Schleusner  Lex.  V.  T.  \  Suidas,  Ibidem. 

X  Psalm  xxxiL  9. 

5* 


106  RELIGIOUS     PROGRESS. 

moderation,"  said  Paul,*  "  be  known  to  all  men."  "We 
suppor-o  our  text  to  include  that  idea,  also.  It  is  a 
ma  a  Iieeping  himself  from  all  immoderate  and  undue 
attachments  to  sense  and  earth.  Christian  temper- 
ance, then,  sets  itself  in  opposition  to  the  drunkard's 
bowl,  and  the  glutton's  banquet,  and  the  revels  of 
tht',  profligate,  and  the  anxious  longings  of  the  covetous ; 
and  against  the  undue  and  immoderate  desire  of  what 
is  not  ours,  as  well  as  against  the  undue  and  im- 
moderate abuse  of  what  is  ours.  It  includes,  thus 
considered,  Sobriety,  and  Chastity,  and  Moderation, — 
all  the  forms  and  all  the  varieties  of  a  wise  self- 
discipline,  imposed  on  man's  fierce  quest  of  pleasure. 
Christian  Temperance,  then,  embraces  indeed  the 
Temperance  ordinarily  so  called  ;  but  it  includes  also, 
much  more  :  just  as  the  State  of  New  York  embraces 
indeed  the  city  of  New  York,  but  besides  this,  the 
metropolis,  it  takes  in  a  far  wider  region  of  field,  river, 
and  mountain,  and  thus  is  spread  over  scenes  of  far 
greater  variety  than  those  which  our  streets  present, 
or  our  wharves  bound.  So  the  Temperance  of  our 
text  is  abstinence  from  intoxication,  but  it  is  also  very 
much  more.  The  Temperance  sought  and  upheld  by 
our  voluntary  organizations  is  merely  a  single  ward  or 
county,  in  the  wide  region  of  moral  reformation  occupied 
by  the  other  virtue.  A  man,  then,  may  meet  the  re- 
quirements of  the  pledge,  so  called,  totally  abstaining 
from  aught  that  should  inebriate,. and  yet  come  short 
utterly  of  the  temperance  here  demanded,  on  the  part 
of  every  true  disciple.     The  voice  of  Christian  Tem- 

*  Philipp.  iv.  5. 


•  TEMPERANCE.  107 

perance  is,  to  use  the  language  of  Paul  to  the  Romans,* 
in  that  memorable  passage  which  wrought  the  conver- 
sion of  St.  Augustine, — "  Let  us  walk  honestly,"  (or, 
as  in  the  margin — decently,)  "as  in  the  day,  not  in 
rioting  and  drunkenness,  not  in  chambering  and  wan- 
tonness, not  in  strife  and  envying.  But  put  ye  on  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  make  not  provision  for  the  flesh' 
to  fulfil  the  lusts  thereof."  It  is  asunmions  to  put  off, 
and  extrude,  and  expel  the  self-pleasing  brute,  and  the 
self-exalting  fiend,  and  to  put  on  the  self-abasing  and 
self-restraining  Christ.  This  grace  in  its  completeness, 
was  the  subject  of  the  same  Paul's  appeals  before  the 
Roman  G-overnor,  when  "  he  reasoned  of  righteousness, 
temperance^  and  judgment  to  come,"  and  Felix  trem- 
bled. The  Roman  Praetor  was  pale  and  cowering,  as 
he  found  himself  shut  in  on  either  hand  by  the  bold 
testimony  of  the  prisoner-apostle  on  the  one  side,  and 
the  dread  echo  of  his  own  guilty  conscience  on  the 
other  side.  He  was  thus  between  Ebal  and  Gorizim: 
and  thunder  pealed  back  its  response  to  thunder,  and 
Guilt  shivered  in  the  commingling  blast  and  storm  of 
truth.  That  Temperance,  whose  claims  thus  shot  into 
his  soul  from  the  burning  lips  of  Christ's  servant,  and 
were  riveted  upon  him  by  his  own  accusing  con- 
sciousness, not  only  forbade  his  sharing  the  profuse 
and  drunken  banquets  of  his  imperial  master,  Nero, 
but  it  denounced  as  well  the  bribes,  which  his  covetous- 
ness  sought  for  the  delay  or  for  the  sale  of  justice,  and 
which  he  would  fain  have  extorted  as  the  price  of 
Paul's  just  liberation ;  and  it  rebuked  too,  the  guilty 
*  Rom.  xiiL  13,  14. 


lOS  RELIGIOUS     PROGRESS.         • 

union  he  had  formed  with  the  adulteress,  Drusilla,  a 
fugitive  from  her  home  and  from  her  rightful  spouse. 
The  Temperance  of  the  G-ospel,  as  one  apostle  preached 
it  before  a  heathen  magistrate,  and  as  another  apostle, 
in  our  text,  enjoins  it  upon  all  Christian  disciples, 
fro^Yns  alike  on  the  drunken  and  the  impure,  the  glut- 
ton, and  the  lecher,  and  "  the  covetous  man,  who  is 
an  idolater."  Besides  enjoining  upon  a  man  his  duties 
to  himself  in  his  own  self-government,  it  also,  in  rep- 
resenting his  duties  to  his  neighbor,  envelops  in  itself 
the  substance  and  essence  of  the  Seventh  and  the 
Tenth  commandments  of  the  Decalogue,  and  glances 
at  the  First  precept  also,  or  that  requiring  supreme 
love  of  our  G-od. 

Having  thus,  then,  in  the  first  instance,  seen  the 
meaning  of  Christian  temperance,  let  us  now 

II.  In  the  next  place,  ask  you  to  observe  the  rela- 
tion between  knowledge  and  Christian  temperance. 

III.  Then,  we  would,  in  passing,  glance  at  the  bear- 
ing of  this  Christian  grace  on  the  Temperance  Refor- 
mation, so  called,  and 

IV.  In  the  fourth  and  last  place,  present  the  claims 
of  Temperance,  in  the  fullest  sense  of  that  term,  upon 
the  Christians  of  our  times. 

II.  Let  your  knowledge,  then,  said  the  apostle  to 
the  readers  of  his  epistle,  defend  itself  by  the  compan- 
ionship of  Temperance.  Why,  it  may  be  asked,  should 
this  be  selected,  and  not  any  other  of  those  clustering 
graces,  which  go  to  crown  the  true  believer,  and  that 
attest  the  energy  and  fruitfulness  of  the  Divine  Spirit 


TliMPERAI.  I   •  .  109 

in  the  work  of  ^is  moral  renovation?  It  maybe  said, 
might  we  not  quite  as  naturally  have  looked  to  hear 
him  say  :  Add  to  your  knowledge  patience,  or  adorn  it 
with  chan'f// ?  But  the  imputed  foolishness  of  God, 
is  wiser  than  the  conceited  wisdom  of  man,  and  often 
our  closer  study  of  God's  Scripture,  will  give  us  to  see 
the  profoundest  truth  and  beauty  in  the  order  that,  at 
the  first  heedless  glance,  seemed  entirely  arbitrary  and 
unaccountable. 

Let  it  be  remembered,  then,  that  in  the  first  sin  of 
our  first  parents,  the  knowledge  which  they  sought, 
beyond  God  and  against  His  instructions,  was  knowl- 
edge wfliich  brought  with  it  a  sin  against  the  holy 
temperance  that  had  before  been  the  law  of  Paradise, 
and  the  accompaniment  and  defence  of  primeval  inno- 
cence. Whilst  in  the  mind,  Pride  sprang  up,  desiring 
the  knowledge  of  good  and  evil,  which  should  make 
them  equal  to  their  Maker  and  independent  of  their 
God,  there  wrought  with  it,  in  the  bodi/  and  its 
senses,  as  the  eye  gazed  on  the  forbidden  fruit,  the 
intemperate  longings  of  those  senses  to  be  gratified 
with  the  taste  of  that  prohibited  boon.  The  love  of 
a  baleful  and  proud  knowledge,  and  the  indulgence  of 
mere  bodily  appetite,  wrought  together  to  make  up 
the  Fall.  Was  it  not  then  fitting,  in  all  this  course 
of  holy  and  heavenly  knowledge,  into  which  the  vic- 
tim of  the  Fall  is  again  uplifted  by  the  redemption  that 
is  in  Christ  Jesus,  and  by  the  renewal  of  the  Spirit, 
that  he,  the  scholar,  should  be  perpetually  reminded 
of  his  need  to  be  on  his  guard  evermore,  against  that 
dominion  of  the  bodily  senses  into  which  the  Fall  be- 


110  RELIGIOUS    PROGRESS. 

trayed  us  ?  And  was  it  not  well,  that  lie  should  be 
cautioned,  evermore,  as  said  Paul,  to  put  on  Christ 
and  to  provide  not  for  the  flesh  ?  Was  not  such  con- 
nection of  temperance  with  knowledge,  virtually  say- 
ing :  In  Satan's  school  knowledge  brought  forth  In- 
temperance ;  but  it  must  not  be  so  in  Christ's  school  ? 
Knowledge  there  slacked  the  rein,  nay,  threw  it  off. 
Here  knowledge  must  knit  it  and  bind  it  on. 

Is  it  not,  again,  a  fact,  sustained  by  the  history  of 
the  Christian  Churches,  and  the  experience  of  every 
educated  people  in  Christendom,  that  even  when  men 
enjoy  this  Gospel,  their  knowledge,  both  in  things 
secular  and  things  spiritual,  is  but  too  often  perverted 
into  a  license  for  casting  off  the  sobriety,  and  self-con- 
trol, and  the  high  piety  and  the  serene  moderation  of 
Christian  principle  ?  Is  not  a  palmy  civilization  often 
found  shading  a  feverish  and  lawless  sensuality  ? 
We  say,  knowledge  too  often  in  a  community  nomi- 
nally Christian,  subverts  Christian  temperance  and 
sobriety.  We  might,  at  first  sight,  expect  just  the 
contrary.  It  might  be  said,  will  not  knowledge,  and 
a  taste  for  acquiring  it,  and  the  books  and  the  lectures 
which  facilitate  its  acquisition,  be  just  the  best  and 
surest  remedies  against  all  brutishness  and  lawless  self- 
indulgence  ?  So  men  have  expected  the  book  to  re- 
place the  wine-cup ;  and  the  Lyceum  and  the  Lec- 
ture to  close  the  dram-shop,  and  to  leave  the  theatres 
tenantless,  without  patronage  or  character.  But  has 
it  been  so  ?  Did  the  British  Society  for  the  Diffu- 
sion of  Useful  Knowledge,  much  as  it  promised  and 
largely  as  it  hoped  from  its  eminent  patrons  and  col- 


TEMPERANCE.  Ill 

laborators,  and  by  its  profuse  supplies  of  a  cheapened 
literature,  draw  from  the  beer-shops  their  crowd  of 
customers,  and  leave  the  gin  palaces  of  the  British 
metropolis  shorn  of  their  glory,  bankrupt,  unvisited, 
and  void  ?  Far  from  it : — an  unsanctified  knowledge 
is,  everywhere,  and  evermore,  a  self-indulgent  knowl- 
edge. Sensuality  will  thrive  under  it,  and  will  thrive 
not  only  in  spite  of  it,  but  by  means  of  it.  Yanity- 
Fair  may  gather  within  its  walls,  alike  the  university 
and  the  drinking-booth,  and  the  scholars  of  the  one  be 
the  gamblers,  duellists,  and  tipplers  of  the  other. 
Temperance,  in  the  large  and  Christian  sense  of  that 
word,  may  be  subverted  by  knowledge,  and  is  daily 
and  lamentably  so  subverted.  Literature,  so  called, 
has  manufactured  furniture  and  gathered  fuel  for  the 
brothel.  Knowledge,  indeed,  claims  to  liberalize  and 
enlarge  the  mind,  but  instead,  it  may  but  liberate  the 
senses,  and  give  a  dispensation  to  reckless  immorality. 
The  increase  of  knowledge,  whether  it  be  gained  by 
travel,  or  by  books,  or  by  a  long  life  of  acquaintance 
with  mankind,  or  by  religious  instructions  and  institu- 
tions even, — if  these  last  are  not  cordially  received 
and  obeyed, — may  be  made  a  dispensation, — a  virtual 
Letter  of  License  for  casting  off  the  oldest  and  the 
soundest  moral  restraints,  as  if  they  were  but  anti- 
quated and  worthless  prejudices.  Was  it  not  thus, 
that  Solomon, — after  his  wide  research,  that  wrote  of 
plants  from  the  Cedar  of  Lebanon  to  the  hyssop  on 
the  wall, — and  in  consequence  of  his  growing  acquaint- 
ance and  his  large  converse  with  heathen  society,—  -be- 


112  RELIGIOUS     PROGRESS. 

came  in  his  old  age  a  doting  conformist   to  the  lewd 
idolatry  of  Ashtaroth? 

Travel  is  commended,  as  expanding  the  mind,  and 
giving  a  knowledge  to  be  obtained  in  no  other  mode. 
Thus,  the  devout  Archbishop  Leighton  was  accustomed 
to  express  a  lively  sense  of  the  advantages  he  had 
gained  from  his  own  youthful  visit  to  the  Continent. 
But  is  a  like  harmless  and  beneficial  result,  seen  as 
flowing  from  the  knowledge  gained  by  others  in  their 
travels?  On  the  contrary,  may  not  our  own  c  latry 
be  seriously  prejudiced  in  her  morals  and  habits,  not 
only  by  the  principles  which  many  of  the  immigrants 
from  the  old  world  bring  with  them,  but  by  those  also 
which  some  of  her  own  sons  travelling  thither  bring 
back  amongst  us  ?  One  of  our  statesmen  wished 
that  an  ocean  of  fire  rolled  between  the  Old  World  and 
the  New,  to  cut  off  the  injurious  effects  of  European 
intercourse  upon  our  nascent  liberties  and  forming 
character.  Without  sympathizing  in  his  wishes,  can 
we  not  yet,  as  christian  patriots,  see  much  of  peril  and 
of  alarm,  in  the  lowering  of  the  moral  tone  and  the  de- 
basement of  principle,  brought  back  by  some  of  the 
travelled  sons  of  our  land,  as  their  only  trophies  from 
the  banks  of  the  Seine  and  the  Tiber  ?  They  see  the 
godless,  but  glittering  dissipation  and  profligacy  of 
Paris  or  Yienna.  Their  foreign  acquaintance  "  think 
it  strange  that  they  run  not  with  them  to  the  same 
excess  of  riot^"*  and  the  visitants  also  "  think  it 
strange,''''  if  the  teachings  of  the  home  and  the  preju- 
dices, as  they  learn  to  call  them,  of  their  countrymen 
should  prevent  their  so  ''^ running,''^  with  their  accom- 


TEMPERANCE.  113 

plished  hosts,  into  the  same  gorgeous  mazes  and  en- 
chanted bowers  of  luxurious  indulgence.  At  the 
richly-spread  table  of  the  packet-ship,  the  youth  im- 
bibes, instead  of  the  temperance  and  sobriety  of  his 
cottage  home,  the  tastes  of  a  refined  epicure.  On  the 
foreign  shore,  he  learns  to  deem  Republican  simplicity 
insipid  and  coarse ;  and  he  longs,  perhaps,  for  the 
spectacles,  the  trappings  and  the  titles  of  a  court.  In 
the  galleries  of  Europe,  he  has  acquired  a  taste  for  Art, 
however  luxurious  and  meretricious  may  be  many  of 
her  most  admired  masterpieces.  And  Modesty  is 
lameness,  and  Virtue  is  affectation  with  him.  He  has 
gazed  whilst  his  brain  was  in  a  whirl  of  giddy,  guilty 
fascination,  on  the .  shameless  twirling  of  the  Opera 
dancer  ;  and  on  the  foul,  simmering  caldron  of  the  mot- 
ley masquerade,  where  Frivolity,  and  Passion,  and  Vice 
bubbled  together,  and  sent  their  clouding  steam,  as  a 
rank  offence,  into  the  face  of  Heaven.  And  have  not 
some  who  had  retained,  at  home,  with  some  degree  of 
general  confidence,  their  profession  of  christian  charao 
ter,  learned  whilst  abroad  to  neglect  the  closet,  and 
desecrate  the  Sabbath,  and  nullify  the  Decalogue ; 
and  brought  back  to  their  christian  friends  at  home 
the  lamentable  spectacle  of  a  soul,  whose  spiritual 
health  had  been  blighted,  incurably  and  forever,  amid 
the  pestilential  miasma  of  foreign  dissipation — of  a 
man,  who  thought  that  he  had  travelled  out  of  the 
reach  of  Sinai  and  its  fiery  law,  when  he  had  only 
sunken  so  deep  in  the  mire  of  sense  as  to  lose  sight 
of  the    flaming  summit,   still  near  to  him  and  still 


114  Ri^LIGIOUS    PROGRESS. 

threatening  him,  with  its  peals  of  thunder  waxing 
louder  and  louder  ? 

And  if  the  Knowledge  won  by  travel,  may  so  corrupt, 
the  knowledge  gained  by  indiscriminate  reading  or 
by  unguarded  speculation  may  be  equally  deleterious. 
A  youth,  even  of  religious  training, — and  it  may  be, 
even  one  aspiring  to  the  tasks  and  responsibilities  of  the 
christian  ministry, — who  should  give  himself  to  the 
eager  and  indiscriminate  perusal  of  the  filth,  inanity 
and  venom  that,  in  the  form  of  cheap  literature,  runs 
in  an  incessant  stream  from  the  press,  could  hardly  re- 
tain soundness  of  moral  perceptions.  To  root  and 
wallow,  but  for  a  few  months,  in  this  garbage,  would 
threaten  to  render  him  hopelessly  an  inmate  of  the 
"  Epicurean  sty."  It  would  be  as  ruinous  as  literal 
drunkenness.  It  would  be  an  intellectual  debauch. 
The  notions  which  such  a  student  forms  of  happi- 
ness are  swinish.  His  highest  conception  of  heroism 
is  brigandage  or  piracy.  And  so  he,  who  commits 
himself,  without  requisite  thought  and  prayer,  to  the 
heedless  collation  of  the  varieties  of  human  opinion, 
and  to  the  survey  of  the  sophistries  and  endless  wan- 
derings of  the  unguided,  unaided  intellect  of  man,  is 
little  likely  to  come  out  of  such  course  of  unregulated 
study,  as  sound  in  principle  as  he  entered  it. 

The  Corinthian  Christians  prided  themselves  on  their 
knowledge  ;  and  on  the  plea  that  from  this  knowledge 
they  had  learned  "  an  idol  to  be  nothing," — a  virtual 
nonentity, — they  with  an  audacious  baseness,  sate  at 
meat  in  the  idol's  temple,  thus  insulting  the  true  G-od, 
evading  His  commands  and  scandalizing  His  churches. 


TEMPERANCE. 


315 


Their  knowledge  "puffed  up,"  but  it  did  not  neces- 
sarily, as  they  supposed,  elevate.  The  huiiiiin  mind, 
like  an  ill-managed  balloon,  may  be  inflated  by  its  ill- 
won,  ill-used  knowledge, — and,  yet  bound  to  the  earth 
by  its  grovelling  nature,  and  prevented  from  ascend- 
ing, may  be,  from  its  inflation,  dat^hed  only  the  more 
violently  into  the  neighboring  quagmires  of  immorality 
and  profligacy.  So  Grerman  Pantheism,  now,  with  its 
vast  hoards  of  erudition,  is  talking  most  madly  of  "  the 
rehabilitation*  of  the  senses,"  and  proposing  to  proclaim 
the  overthrow  of  all  morality,  and  the  restoration  to 
appetite  and  to  brutal  license  of  all  the  sway  which 
Reason,  Conscience,  and  Religion  have  hitherto  exer- 
cised over  them.  Knowledge  is  to  eject  the  lingering 
manhood,  the  last  vestige  of  immortality,  and  develop 
the  roluiid,  and  lawless,  and  contented  brute,  without 
a  conscience,  an  eternity,  or  a  God. 

So  is  it,  also,  with  the  knowledge  won  by  lon^  ex- 
perience of  the  world.  A  man  thus  knowing  man- 
kind, as  it  is  called,  may  in  his  old  age  become  the 
yielding  prey  to  temptations,  that  shall  be  based  on 
his  long  and  wide  acquaintance  with  human  nature. 
He  ntny  thus  learn  to  look  suspiciously  and  selfishly 
on  all  iiis  race,  and,  like  Isaac  in  his  blindness,  solace 
himself  with  the  poor  consolation  of  the  savory  meat 
that  his  soul  loveth,  or  flee  to  the  inebriating  draught, 
or  concentrate  his  trust  and  heart  on  the  gold  from 
which  death  must  soon  rend  him. 

*  A  term  of  the  old  Roman  or  civil  law  for  the  restoration  of  rights 
long  withheld  Tho  senses  are  regarded  as  heirs  long  defrauded  of 
their  just  rights  and  liberty. 


116 


RELIGIOUS     PROGRESS. 


So  IS  it,  even,  with  the  instructions  and  institutions 
of  religion,  as  ministering  to  our  knowledge,  if  dis- 
obeyed or  perverted.  We  may  from  them,  only  de- 
rive a  dispensation  for  the  indulgence  of  our  fleshly 
and  earthly  senses.  Religious  knowledge  became, 
with  the  Pharisee,  an  excuse  for  his  failing  to  touch 
with  one  of  his  fingers,  the  heavy  burden  of  obedience 
to  that  law,  which  he  imposed  on  the  shoulders  of 
others.  His  sacred  lore  sealed  him  a  Bull  of  Indul- 
gence ;  and  made  the  convert  he  taught  but  tenfold 
more  the  child  of  Hell.  So,  Saint's  holidays  have 
been  crowded  into  the  Calendar,  in  the  nominal  Chris- 
tian Church,  and  "  the  knowledge"  of  the  holy  men 
and  of  the  sacred  miracles  of  the  Church,  rapidly  in- 
creased, till  the  Sabbath  was  stript  of  its  legitimate 
honors,  of  its  sanctities  not  only,  but  of  its  decencies 
even;  and  until  the  idleness  thus  consecrated  on  other 
days  of  rightful  toil  led  the  way  to  all  thriftlessness, 
and  drunkenness,  and  debauchery.  And  so,  in  our  own 
Protestant  land,  has  our  religious  knowledge  saved  us 
as  a  nation  from  all  wrong-doing  in  our  treatment  of 
the  Indian  ?  Has  the  red  man  of  the  forest  no  reason 
to  complain,  on  the  contrary,  of  the  Christians,  if  they 
are  so  to  be  called,  who  from  the  land  of  the  Bible 
and  the  church-going  bell,  came  to  initiate  him  only 
in  the  mysteries  of  the  liquid  death,  that  dropped  from 
the  worm  of  the  still,  and  in  the  oaths,  and  in  the 
frauds,  and  in  the  vices  of  a  corrupt  civilization  ? 
And  what  has  been  the  plea  urged  to  excuse  us  ?  Our 
cultivation  by  knowledge,  and  his  uncultivated  and 
savage  ignorance.     Has  the  Mohammedan  of  Turkey, 


TEMPERANCE. 


117 


or  of  far  Persia,  no  right  to  complain  of  Puritan  Now 
England,  whose  intelligent  and  church-goiil^  mer- 
chants have  wafted  over  the  sea,  and  rolled  to  his  very 
door  their  casks  of  New  England  Rum, — the  present 
of  Christian  civilization  in  its  completeness  to  the  in- 
complete civilization  of  the  Moslem  ?  A  land  boast- 
ful of  its  knowledge  in  art  and  science, — of  its  educa- 
tion and  general  intelligence  and  Christian  lore — is 
thus  sending  over  the  sea  to  the  scenes  of  the  first 
Apostles'  labors  and  martyrdom,  the  barrelled  apostle- 
ship  of  fiery  and  murderous  Intemperance.  And,  to 
come  yet  nearer  to  our  own  hearts  and  frailties,  how 
easy  is  it,  brethren,  in  the  ministry  of  the  word,  for 
the  Christian  Pastor  to  mistake  the  perception  of  a 
truth  for  conformity  to  its  commands.  The  man  sees, 
and  brings  others  to  see,  the  worth  and  Scriptural 
evidence,  and  paramount  demands  of  a  great  doctrine 
or  duty  of  the  Gospel ;  but,  meanwhile,  satisfied  with 
this,  never  thinks  to  ask,  if  he  has  laid  his  own  heart 
and  his  own  life,  as  a  pinioned  victim,  in  unresisting 
sacrifioo  on  the  altar  of  that  his  Lord's  law.  He 
luxuriates  in  the  sublimer  and  lovelier  aspects  of  Re 
ligion,  and  would  have  them  play  like  the  rainbow  or 
the  northern  lights,  on  the  surface  of  the  imagination  ; 
but  will  not  have  truth's  dark  and  strong  roots  shoot 
themselves  deep  into  his  own  treasured  affections — the 
inmost  subsoil  of  his  soul.  He  rejoices  in  the  ideal  of 
Christianity,  but  loathes  its  practical  side.  His  knowl- 
edge is  INTEMPERATE. 

There  may  then  be  knowledge  from  travel  over  the 
wide  main  and  among  many  lands,  and  the  men  of 


118  •  RELIGIOUS     PROGRESS. 

many  tongues, — knowledge  from  the  stored  library 
and  i.ofn  converse  with  its  mighty  dead, — and  knowl- 
edge from  long  and  close  observation  of  mankind, — 
and  even  religious  knowledge  gained  from  the  faithful 
pulpit  and  the  Inspired  Oracles,  so  corrupted,  or  so 
perversely  used  that  its  effect  is  only  to  subvert  moral 
restraint,  and  to  blight  the  heart  of  purity,  and  to  in- 
troduce a  wide-spread  and  inveterate  social  demoral- 
ization that  unknits  the  bonds  of  obligation  and  eats 
out  the  pith  of  conscience. 

"  Take  heed  how  ye  hear,"  cried  the  One  Infallible 
Teacher  and  Saviour  of  the  race.  And  we  suppose 
that  warning  to  say  virtually  to  all  who  pursue  after 
knowledge :  Take  heed  how  ye  read  in  the  varied, 
and  often  frivolous,  and  often  baleful  productions  of  the 
human  intellect.  Take  heed  how,  and  in  what  mood 
— prayerless  or  prayerful,  heedless  or  obedient — ye 
peruse,  even  my  own  pure  utterances.  Take  heed 
how  ye  see,  and  make  a  covenant  with  your  eyes,  that 
they. turn  away  from  beholding  and  desiring  the  van- 
ity which  cannot  fail  to  meet  your  vision.  Take  heed 
how  you  THINK,  for  out  of  the  secret  chambers  of 
meditation,  the  covert  labyrinths  of  thought,  comes 
forth  at  last  the  overt  act,  and  there  stalks  out  to  the 
noon-day  light,  the  unveiled  character.  Knowledge 
should  minister  to  temperance.  Let  not  your  knowl- 
edge minister  only  to  license  and  folly,  and  error,  and 
sin,  and  death.  , 

Much  is,  by  some,  most  confidently  predicted  from 
the  wide  diffusion  of  education,  and  the  cheapening  of 
the    issues    of   the   press.      The   newspaper   visiting 


TEMPERANCE.  119 

every  door,  and  the  school  enlightening  every  neighbor- 
hood, and  worldly  lore  climbing  every  pulpit — all  are 
spoken  of  as  if  AVickedness  and  Misery  were  to  vanish 
from  their  glance.  Has  it  been  so  ?  Will  it  be  so  ? 
On  the  contrary,  a  mastery  of  worldly  knowledge 
without  religious  principle, — or  an  intermixture  of 
overlooked  error  in  a  great  increase  of  knowledge, — or 
a  heartless  and  searing  familiarity  with  disobeyed 
Scripture,  may  leave  the  heart  but  more  possessed 
with  earthliness,  and  less  susceptible  of  control.  "  The 
commandment  has  come"  with  fuller  light  and  clearer 
knowledge,  and  "  sin  has  revived,"  as  said  the  lament- 
ing apostle.  If  grain  be  borne  to  a  famishing  people, 
it  stays  their  hunger  ;  but  if  the  ergot  be  in  the  grain, 
those  who  are  fed,  are  likely  to  be  also  palsied  and 
mutilated.  Has  there  been  no  instance,  in  which  the 
harvest  of  knowledge  has  borne  to  the  garners  of  an 
irreligious  nation,  or  of  a  formal  hypocritical  church, 
only  the  mental  aliment  that  poisoned  and  dismem- 
bered the  body  corporate  ?  Knowledge  has  its.  ergot. 
And  woe  to  those  who  greedily,  indiscreetly,  and  indis- 
criminately devour  it. 

Having  thus,  then,  seen  how  knowledge  may  sub- 
vert Christian  temperance,  we  proposed 

in.  To  glance,  in  passing,  at  the  bearing  of  this 
Christian  grace  on  the  Temperance  Reformation  of  our 
times.  We  said  that  the  temperance  of  the  Gospel 
included  this  last,  but  it  embraced  also  very  much 
more.  For  the  amount  of  good  attempted  and  accom- 
plished by  this  reform,  every  patriot  and  every  Chris- 
tian should  rejoice.     The  Bible  does  not,  indeed,  like 


iCO  RELIGIOUS     PROGRESS. 

th''  Temperance  Socioty,  make  it  the  imperative  duty 
of  thi;  Christian,  in  all  times,  and  in  all  circumstances, 
to  forego  the  use  of  the  beverage,  that  taken  in  excess 
may  induce  drunkenness.  But  christian  expediency, 
as  taught  in  the  New  Testament,  may  require  it  of  the 
Christians  of  a  certain  time,  and  of  a  land  r:  ^tly  ac- 
cursed vv^ith  a  free  use  of  what  ^nay  int^jxi;-  te,  to 
forego  their  abstract  rights  from  a  v/ise  regard  '"  iheir 
own  infirmity,  and  a  kind  desire  i>i  their  Lhj; iters 
preservation.  Churches  may  not  make  entire  absti- 
nence a  term  of  fellowship  ;  for  they  are  not  entitled 
to  institute  new  conditions  of  Commi'uion.  But  they 
may,  and  must  protest  against,  and  discipline  those 
who  heedlessly  and  heartlessly  aid  to  swell  a  general 
scandal,  and  aggravate  a  national  curse.  In  some  of 
the  friends  of  the  Temperance  Reform  there  may  have 
been  errors  to  be  lamented,  and  amongst  these  may  be 
named  a  disposition  to  desecrate  the  Sabbath,  and  to 
depreciate  Christianity  and  the  Christian  Church, — a 
weak  love  of  mutual"  applause,  and,  above  all,  a  resort 
to  secret  societies,  with  their  oaths,  and  signs,  and 
watch- words.  But  whilst  condemning  all  these,  it  is 
yet  true  that  the  penitentiaries,  and  the  alms-houses, 
and  the  homes  of  the  land,  and  even  its  sanctuaries, 
needed  the  Temperance  movement.  The  Book  that 
shows  intemperance,  in  the  histories  of  Noah  and  of 
Lot,  working  so  disastrously — that  traces  to  the  glut- 
tony of  the  Cities  of  the  Plain,  and  to  their  "  fulness 
of  bread,"  their  awful  sin  and  doom — that  shows  Bel- 
shazzar  and  his  Babylon  feasting  to  drunkenness  on 
the  night  of  the  Persian  irruption,  and  of  the  resound- 


TEMTE  RANGE. 


121 


ing  fall  of  the  Chaldean  Empire, — that  paints  the 
chosen  tribes  in  the  wilderness  sitting  down  to  eat  and 
to  drink,  and  rising  up  to  idolatrous  play,  and  in  the 
latest  and  worst  days  of  their  history  as  a  monarchy, 
represents  their  Princes  as  strong  to  mingle  strong 
drink,  but  weak  in  counsel,  and  in  valor,  and  in  pub- 
lic virtue, — the  Book  that  thus  portrays  and  condemns 
intoxication  and  excess,  and  excludes  the  drunkard 
from  the  kingdom  of  G-od,  does  not  teach  its  reverent 
and  docile  students  to  think  lightly,  or  speak  scof- 
fingly  of  a  movement,  that,  on  either  side  of  the  At- 
lantic, has  done  so  much  to  arrest  personal  and  social 
ruin,  to  restore  the  fallen,  and  to  stay  the  feet  that 
were  ready  to  slide,  brought  back  many  a  prodigal  to 
despairing  parents,  and  restored  to  a  wife  more  than 
widowed,  and  to  children  worse  than  fatherless,  the 
husband  and  father  disembruted,  clothed,  and  in  his 
right  mind.  But  we  suppose  that  the  best  friends  of 
Tejiiperance  will  yet  find  that,  to  give  it  permanence, 
it  needs  the  broader  basis  and  the  deeper  root  of  a  re- 
ligious movement ;  and  that  here,  as  in  so  many  other 
earthly  reforms,  the  controlling  motives — the  effectual 
lever,  must  rest  on  some  stronger  and  firmer  basis  than 
earthly  considerations.  And  let  not  the  ardent  pane- 
gyrists of  Temperance  forget,  that  a  man  may  renounce 
drunkenness,  and  yet  remain  the  enemy  of  God,  and 
the  heir  of  perdition.  Neither  Judas  nor  Ahithophel 
is  charged  with  intoxication.  Neither  Voltaire  nor 
Rousseau  was  a  drunkard,  although  Paine  was.  "Was 
Temperance,  in  them,  necessarily  the  sum  of  all  virtue? 
No.    The  atoning  Cross  and  the  renewing  Spirit  remain 

6 


122  RELIGIOUS    PROGRESS. 

yet  the  one  pathway  to  Heaven,  and  mere  abstinence 
from  a  single  form  of  moral  debasement  constitutes 
but  a  slender  shred  of  moral  adornment  and  defence, 
if  it  be  pleaded  as  a  man's  sole  and  sufficient  warrant 
for  his  admission  to  the  general  assembly  of  the 
heavenly  world.  He  will  need  another  "  wedding  gar- 
ment," who  is  "  called  to  go  in  to  the  marriage-supper 
of  the  Lamb."  Drunkenness  is  enough  to  damn  a 
man ;  but  the  mere  absence  of  Drunkenness  is  by  no 
means  enough  to  save  him.  Christian  Temperance, 
even,  in  its  further  reaching  claims,  is  not  in  itself 
evidence  of  a  meetness  for  Heaven.  It  is  but  one  of 
a  train  of  developed  moral  excellencies,  springing  out 
of  the  root  of  true  faith — one  of  the  fruits  of  the  re- 
newing Spirit. 

IV.  We  have  now  reached  the  last  division  of  our 
subject ;  the  claims  of  this  Christian  grace,  taken  in 
the  wide  and  comprehensive  sense  which  Scripture  at- 
taches to  it,  upon  the  disciples  of  our  times.  It  is 
neces&ary,  then,  to  true  piety.  The  knowledge  and 
love  of  God  cannot  lodge  in  a  heart  crowded  and  drag- 
ged downward  by  debasing,  and  carnal,  and  sinful 
pleasure.  God  is  the  maker  of  both  the  body  and  the 
soul.  He  deems  both  wronged  by  those  who  cast  off 
the  restraints  of  His  law  of  Temperance.  Such  trans- 
gressors are  charged  with  dishonoring  their  own 
bodies*  And  they  are  warned  as  to  fleshly  lusts,  in 
their  influence  on  the  inner  man,  that  these  war 
against  the  soul.t  Communion  with  God,  the  duties 
of  the  closet,  and  the  accepted  and  profitable  attend- 
*  Rom.  L  24.  f  1  Peter,  ii  11. 


TEMPERANQE.  123 

ance  on  the  sanctuary  require  that  the  man  who  at- 
tempts these,  dwell  not  in  the  company  of  the  foolish, 
and  in  the  tents  of  the  transgressors,  nor  roll  wicked- 
ness under  his  tongue  as  a  sweet  morsel,  nor  regard 
iniquity  in  his  heart.  If  men  are  Christ's,  they  are 
crucified  with  Him  to  the  flesh  and  the  world. 

It  is  necessary  as  well  to  christian  usefulness.  The 
man  who  would  be  really  and  widely  useful  must 
have  an  unselfish  sympathy.  Now,  of  this,  the  lovers 
of  pleasure  are  notoriously  and  necessarily  destitute. 
Few  things  more  rapidly  and  surely  bring  a  seared 
callousness  over  the  heart  than  the  habitual  pursuit  of 
gross  and  selfish  pleasure.  The  actor,  it  may  be,  as 
the  scene  shifts,  drops  before  such  lovers  of  pleasure  in 
the  crowded  Theatre,  snatched  quick  into  eternity,  but 
he  must  be  carried  to  his  agonized  family  and  his 
lonely  death-bed  ;  it  may  not  mar  or  delay  the  sports 
of  the  children  of  worldly  gayety.  Sternly,  fiercely 
resolute,  though  the  wing  of  the  destroying  angel  has 
just  brushed  them  in  his  flight, — they  would  forget 
care  and  compel  joy  upon  the  very  scene  where  the 
boards  are  yet  warm  from  the  victim's  limbs,  writhing 
in  their  mortal  agony.  In  the  conflict  of  our  times, 
again,  with  the  self-sacrificing  zeal  of  some  Romanists 
on  the  one  hand,  and  with  the  Utopian  but  enthusias- 
tic benevolence  of  some  errorists  'or  sceptics  on  the 
other,  Christians  must  (to  maintain  their  due  promi- 
nence and  pre-eminence  in  the  ranks  of  reform  and 
philanthropy)  become  more  than  ever  self-denying,  and 
not  at  all  subject  themselves  to  the  imputation  of  seem- 
ing "  lovers  of  pleasure,  more  than  lovers  of  God.''^ 


124  RELIGIOUS    PROGRESS. 

To  secure,  again,  the  time  and  the  pecuniary  resources 
required  for  wide  usefulness,  it  is  requisite  that  the 
church  waste  not  her  leisure  or  her  wealth  on  worldly 
and  vain  gratifications.  Eras  of  revolution  have  been 
to  a  people  loving  their  country,  eras  of  heavy  and 
yet  cheerfully  endured  taxation.  Our  earth  is  passing 
into  a  crisis  of  moral  revolution  ;  and  the  revenues  of 
the  church,  and  the  time  of  Christians,  must  yield 
more  largely  their  tribute  to  meet  the  emergencies  of 
the  impending  conflict.  But  christian  temperance  is 
needful  still  more  to  christian  happiness.  True  felicity 
is  found  most  readily,  when  not  sovight  for  imme- 
diately and  for  its  own  sake.  Much  that  the  world 
calls  such,  and  as  such  seeks,  is  wrongly  styled  Happi- 
ness ;  and  when  reached,  her  name  and  looks  are 
found  those  of  Disappointment  or  of  Remorse.  For 
what  is,  to  a  rational  and  mortal  and  immortal  being, 
pleasure,  in  the  justest  sense  of  that  term  ?  Is  it  the 
deity  of  Pagan  legends,  with  reeling  steps,  empurpled 
face,  and  bloodshot  eye, — careless,  and  bloated,  and 
brazen  in  his  shamelessness  ?  In  the  days  of  the 
Stuarts,  England  to  such  a  deity  raised  her  May-poles, 
crowned  with  garlands  and  circled  with  dances.  Read 
in  contemporary  dramatists  and  annalists,  the  effect,  on 
the  morals  and  character,  of  such  amusements.  To 
such  a  deity  James  I.  should  have  dedicated  his  Book 
of  Sports,  enjoined  to  be  read  from  the  pulpit,  and 
requiring  the  stern  Puritan  to  forego  a  part  of  his 
Sabbath,  and  to  give  the  church-yard  of  Christ's  sanc- 
tuaries, on  the  afternoon  of  the  hallowed  day,  to  the 
gambol  and  the  revel  and  the  masque.     Read  in  tho 


TEAIPK  RANGE.  125 

story  of  Baxter's  youth  the  character  and  piety  of  such 
Sabbath  revellers.  Was  true  pleasure  for  the  individual 
or  the  family  so  won  ?  Put,  in  the  days  of  the  later 
Stuarts,  as  an  instance  of  true  and  waking  felicity, 
the  household  of  Philip  Henry,  orderly,  reverent,  and 
guarded  with  the  sermon,  and  prayers,  and  catechizing, 
and  singing,  and  all  their  Sabbath-day  employments, 
— against  the  drunken  bouts,  the  rude,  rough  wit,  the 
profanity,  and  the  reckless  indulgence,  of  Henry's 
acquaintance  and  neighbor,  the  Lord  Chancellor  .JefF- 
eries ; — and  was  it  the  law-biding  saint,  or  the  lawless 
Cavalier,  that  was  most  blest,  even  for  this  life  and  in 
their  several  chosen  employments  ?  You  lot)k  in, 
upon  the  godly  father  amid  his  children  all  godly,  and 
you  hear  him  exclaiming,  as  the  Sabbath  evening 
shades  shut  down  around  them,  as  at  that  hour  he 
often  exclaimed,  "  If  this  be  not  Heaven,  it  surely  is  the 
nearest  way  thither,  and  the  likest  to  it"  And  your 
conscience  reiterates  the  justness  of  the  sentiment. 
Yes,  where  the  self-restraint  was,  Heaven  already  shot 
anticipatory  gleams  ;  where  there  was  no  self-restraiat, 
the  brightness  was  livid.  It  came  from  beneath.  It 
shed  an  ominous  and  ghastly  ray. 

And  so,  in  our  own  times,  is  it  the  youth,  returning 
jaded,  and  guilty,  from  the  Sabbath  excursion,  pur- 
chased perhaps  too  often  by  pilferings  from  the  till — 
is  it  the  parent,  dragging  back  his  fatigued  and 
irreligious  household  to  an  unblest  home  : — or,  is  it 
the  Sabbath-school  teacher,  or  the  pious  parent,  worn, 
but  not  fretted  by  the  sweet  toils  of  the  day  passed  in 
the  sanctuary, — who  is  on  the  Sabbath  most  serenely 


126  RELIGIOUS     PROGRESS. 

and  most  truly  blest  ?  Do  you  say,  how  can  such 
restraint,  by  any  possibility,  be  blest,  or  even  tolera- 
ble ?  We  answer,  true  happiness  is,  like  Purity  and 
Truth  and  Honor  and  Heroism,  and  aught  that  is 
really  good,  a  law  and  restraint  to  itself.  It  shrinks 
and  braces  itself  up  from  the  degradation  and  con- 
tamination of  an  uncontrolled  course.  It  sees  in 
G-od's  Book,  among  His  most  dreaded  denunciations, 
the  threat  of  the  removal  of  all  restraint — that  removal 
which  is,  by  some,  so  coveted  :  "  So  I  gave  them  up  to 
their  own  hearts'  lust"  is  G-od's  declaration  in  the 
Psalms,  of  His  sorest  earthly  visitation  on  a  guilty 
people.* 

It  is  necessary  to  National  well-being  and  pros- 
perity.  When,  some  years  since,  an  officer  in  com- 
mand of  a  ship  of  the  United  States  Navy,  visited  an 
island  of  the  South  Seas ; — and  vi(^ently  restored 
there,  against  the  will  of  the  converted  natives  and  of 
the  Sovereign,  the  old  and  Pagan  licentiousness,  and 
maligned  and  assailed  the  Christian  Missionaries,  his 
own  countrymen,  who  were  there  laboring ;  what  man 
of  right  feeling  did  not  for  his  country's  honor  and  for 
his  country's  interest,  denounce  so  shameless  and 
high-handed  a  wrong?  In  the  recent  violent  expul- 
sion of  the  OVleans  branch  of  the  Bourbons,  from  the 
throne  and  soil  of  France,  is  not  the  Christian  re- 
minded of  similar  violences  inflicted  on  Tahiti  and  not 
as  here,  disavowed  by  the  government  under  whose 
flag  it  was  done  ?  Was  there  no  evidence,  then  re- 
'Tealed  to  the  observant   mind,  that   the  G-od  whose 

*  Psalm  Ixxxi.  12. 


TEMPERANCE.  127 

name  often  ushers  in  treaties,  but  whose  existence  is 
often  forgotten  by  diplomatists,  is  looking  in  upon  the 
guilty  cabinets  that  persecute  His  Gospel  ?  Was 
.there  nothing  to  remind  us,  in  the  clamor  of  that 
Revolution,  when  the  throne  was  borne,  a  dishonored 
wreck,  along  the  tumultuous  streets,  that  the  dust 
shaken  at  the  Master's  bidding  from  the  feet  of  a 
despised,  and  rejected  Missionary  of  that  Master,  may, 
dust  though  it  be,  avail  to  scatter,  when  God  chooses, 
like  summer  chaff,  the  loftiest  thrones  and  the  oldest 
dynasties  ?  "With  us  national  power  has  not  yet  been 
thus  used.  And  if  we  might  thus  use  our  national 
fleets  to  trample  down  moral  restraint  abroad,  is  it 
not  evident,  we  might  be  in  turn  the  victims,  by  a  just 
retribution :  and  who  would  wish  himself  and  his 
kindred  to  be  thus  the  prey  of  the  lawless  for- 
eigner ?  Succeeding  expeditions,  under  Bolton,  and 
under  Wilkes,  were  most  honorably  contrasted,  in 
their  treatment  of  converts  from  heathenism  and  of 
their  Missionary  pastors,  with  this  wretched  and  loath- 
some spectacle.  We  allude  to  it,  only  to  suggest  what 
would  be  the  national  destiny  of  a  people  who  should 
adopt  such  policy,  and  the  inquiry  whether  a  giddy, 
inebriated  and  profligate  people,  shedding  abroad  giddi- 
ness and  profligacy, — it  matters  not  what  their  strength 
or  their  numbers  or  their  valor, — can  expect  long  to 
maintain  self-government  and  free  institutions  ? 

If  a  nation  be  like  our  own,  eager  and  earnest  for 
the  sustentation  and  the  diffiision  of  freedom,  are  we 
not  doubly  pledged  to  those  morals  of  Christian  Tem- 
perance which  are  necessary  as  a  part  of  the  basis  of 


128  RELIGIOUS     PROGRESS. 

enduring  liberty  ?  Take  away  the  restraints  of  Prot- 
estant  Christianity,  and  substitute  even  another  form 
of  Christianity,  as  Rome  presents  it.  G-ive  up  the  Pu- 
ritan Sabbath,  with  its  principled  quiet,  and  its  sacred 
order — receive,  in  exchange,  the  Carnival  of  Rome, 
with  its  principled  misrule  and  consecrated  disorder. 
Both  seasons  are  intended  to  commemorate  the  same 
Saviour : — but  the  one  is  all  redolent  of  christian  tem- 
perance ;  the  other  as  abhorrent  of  it ; — and  what 
far-sighted  patriot  could  hesitate,  as  to  the  relative  in- 
fluence of  the  two  institutions  on  the  security,  and 
freedom,  and  prosperity  of  the  nation  ? 

2.  But  what  does  christian  temperance  require,  and 
what  does  it  forbid  ?  In  fashion,  then,  it  censures  all 
that  is  wasteful,  all  that  trenches  on  immodesty,  and 
all  that  feeds  pride  and  starves  alms-giving.  In  dress 
and  in  furniture,  in  the  table  and  in  the  equipage,  it 
prescribes  simplicity  without  affected  singularity, 
plenty  without  luxury,  liberality  without  ostentation, 
and  the  spirit  of  those  who  eat  to  live,  rather  than  the 
tastes  of  those  who  live  to  eat.  It  enjoins  a  chas- 
tened moderation  in  the  day  of  prosperity,  and  a  sus- 
tained meekness  and  trustfulness  in  the  day  of  adver- 
sity,— a  holding  of  the  world  loosely,  but  a  holding 
our  own  inclinations  and  desires  tightly,  and  under 
vigilant  control.  It  does  not  prescribe  austerities  for 
their  own  sake,  or  as  in  themselves  meritorious.  ThR 
maceration  of  the  body,  the  severe  penances,  practised 
in  the  ritual  of  La  Trappe,  or  by  the  fir^t  anchorites 
of  the  Egyptian  desert,  it  does  not  find  paralleled,  or 
commended  in  the  New  Testament.     Yet,  it  resrards 


TEMPERANCE.  129 

Paul's  charge,  that  the  body  bo  brought  under  subjection 
to  the  soul.  "  Keeping  my  body  under,"  as  says  the 
apostle,  "  lest  I  become  a  castaway."  It  sees  in  that 
body,  in  the  case  of  each  Christian,  "  a  temple  of  the 
Holy  G-host."  Rome  shows  its  Loretto, — a  sacred 
house,  the  chamber  of  the  Virgin  Mary,  which  it  fables 
to  have  been  carried  in  the  air  from  Syria,  and  planted 
down  where  it  now  stands,  in  Italy.  The  Gospel 
teaches  us  to  see,  in  the  believer's  body,  the  true  Lo- 
retto, a  house  that  shall  be  translated  into  a  higher 
world,  and  rebuilt  there,  another  and  yet  the  same, 
and  therefore  to  be  honored,  even  in  its  present  and 
earthly  uses. 

In  the  soul  it  recognizes  the  rights  of  a  new  master, 
the  Deliverer,  who  has  emancipated  it  from  the  tyranny 
of  its  old  despot  and  destroyer,  the  Father  of  Lies. 
And  the  powers  of  that  soul  are  consecrated  to  a  chris- 
tian allegiance.  "  Lord  Will-be- Will,"  according  to 
Bunyan's  allegory,  holds  Man-soul  for  its  new  sov- 
ereign in  christian  vigilance,  and  with  christian  decision. 

3.  It  may  be  objected,  And  are  no  amusements  al- 
lowable to  the  disciple  of  Christ  ?  The  book  of  Ec- 
clesiastes  is  perhaps  misquoted  in  defence  of  worldly 
enjoyments.  Misquoted,  we  say,  for  the  earlier  por- 
tion of  that  book,  instead  of  containing  what  were 
really  Solomon's  parting  counsels  to  his  reader,  but 
records  his  erring  principles  and  endeavors,  in  his 
ear  ier  and  misguided  pursuit  of  happiness.  To  quote 
its  opening  statements  and  sentiments,  as  if  they  were 
the  final  result  and  settled  principle  of  Solomon's  ex- 
perience, is  to  mistake  the  details  of  the  preceding  dis- 

6* 


130  RELIGIOUS     PROGRESS. 

ease  for  the  recipes  of  the  subsequent  recovery.  But 
does  the  Bible  forbid  all  cheerfulness,  and  joyousness  ? 
Docs  true  Piety  scowl  from  under  the  knit  brow,  on  all 
that  savors  of  gladness,  and  hope,  and  peace  ?  By  no 
means.  Our  Saviour  was  present  at  feasts.  One  of  His 
apostles,  (it  was  Matthew,)  after  being  called  to  forsake 
his  receipt  of  custom  and  follow  Christ,  gave  a  ban- 
quet to  his  friends.  Our  Saviour  honored  a  wedding- 
festival  at  Cana,  in  Galilee,  by  a  miracle  there  wrought. 
He  watched  the  sports  of  children,  and  grounded  on 
them  one  of  His  parables.  He  praised  the  beauty  of 
the  lily,  and  the  blithe  trustfulness  of  the  bird.  Surely, 
He  who  did  all  this,  and  who  as  the  Grod  of  Provi- 
dence is  yet  waking  the  melodies  of  the  grove,  and 
flashing  splendor  along  the  skies,  painting  the  tulip 
and  perfuming  the  leaf  of  the  rose  and  the  heart  of 
the  violet,  is  not  disposed  to  inhibit  to  man  all  joy 
and  delight  in  the  use  of  the  senses  which  He  has 
formed,  and  in  the  contemplation  of  the  objects  with 
which  He  has  surrounded  His  creatures  :  Nature,  and 
Art,  and  Society,  all  may  minister  to  the  Christian's  en- 
joyment. But  Heaven  is  his  chief  point  of  attraction 
even  here,  and  whatever  is  alien  in  spirit  to  that  world 
of  light  and  purity,  he  must  dread.  His  pleasures  should 
be  therefore  rational,  and  not  unduly  exciting,  and  not 
in  excess — the  relaxation,  and  not  the  business  of  life. 
An  easy  test,  as  to  the  lawfulness  of  many  forms 
of  recreation,  might  be  found  in  inquiring.  Should  I 
be  willing,  were  Christ  bodily  and  visibly  present,  to 
pursue  the  amusement  under  His  meek  yet  searching 
glance  ?    C  ould  the  modern  theatre,  or  the  modern  ball- 


TEMPERANCE.  131 

room  either,  be  visited  by  a  Chri.stian,  if  this  test  were 
once  apphed  ?  Take  each,  with  its  ordinary  accom- 
paniments, and  its  general  results  on  the  minds  and 
religious  character  of  its  visitants ;  and  could  we  look 
to  see  our  Saviour  there  stand  by  us  with  approval 
beaming  from  his  eyes  ?  Can  we  imagine  Him,  had 
He  visited  at  the  time  the  court  of  Herod,  watching 
with  benignant  smile  the  young  and  fair  girl,  the 
daughter  of  Herodias,  as  in  her  dance  she  pleased  her 
father  and  the  chief  lords  of  Gralilee  ?  Even,  had 
not  the  prophet's  gory  head  been  the  grim  prize  of  her 
gracefulness,  can  we  conceive  of  Clii-ist's  sympathiz- 
ing in  her  exhibition  ?  "Weddings  in  the  East,  of 
old  were,  and  yet  are,  frequently  celebrated  by  the 
dancing  of  hired  women.  The  Almehs  of  Egypt,  and 
the  Bayaderes  of  Hindostan,  thus  display  themselves, 
as  contributing  their  portion  to  the  amusements  of  the 
wedding-festival.  Imagine  such  an  accompaniment  of 
the  nuptial  festivity  at  Cana  in  Galilee,  commenced 
beneath  Christ's  eyes,  and  would  you  not  almost  expect, 
that  the  scourge  of  small  cords,  which  did  its  work  so 
vigorously  in  the  Jewish  temple  on  the  sellers  of  doves, 
would  have  done  an  anticipatory  work  there  ; — thus 
avenging  the  insulted  purity  of  the  home,  as  He  after- 
wards vindicated  the  outraged  majesty  of  the  Sanc- 
tuary ?  If  worldly  pleasure  were  innocuous  and  evan- 
gelical, as  some  represent  it,  it  ought  certainly  to  fit 
those  practising  it,  better  than  it  actually  does,  for  the 
infirmities  of  age  and  the  tremendous  realities  of  the 
death-bed.  But  are  such  votaries  of  pleasure  cheered 
in  sickness  and  soothed  in  decay,  and  in  the  near  view 


132  RELIGIOUS    PROGRESS. 

of  the  grave,  by  their  reminiscences  of  the  years  given 
to  levity  and  folly  ?  Read  the  language  of  the  gay, 
and  witty,  and  accomplished  Chesterfield,  as  he  de- 
scribes his  listlessness,  and  weariness,  and  wretched- 
ness, in  the  closing  scenes  of  life.  See  the  Madame 
du  Barry,  who  had  so  flaunted  in  gay  and  guilty 
splendor  in  the  court  of  Louis  XV.,  as  she  is  dragged, 
shrieking,  in  her  last  years,  to  the  Revolutionary  guil- 
lotine, the  least  self-possessed  and  the  most  frantic  of 
its  many  female  victims.  And  can  you  doubt  more  ? 
Read,  above  all,  the  stern  language  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment:  "If  any  man  love  the  world,  the  love  of  the 
Father  is  not  in  him."  "Whose  god  is  their  belly, 
whose  glory  is  in  their  shame,  who  mind  earthly 
things."  "  Of  whom  I  have  told  you  weeping,  they 
are  the  enemies  of  the  cross  of  Christ.  "Whose  end 
is  destruction."  "  The  belly  for  meats  and  meats  for 
the  belly,  but  God  shall  destroy  both  them  and  it." 
"To  be  carnally  minded  is  death,  but  to  be  spiritually 
minded  is  life  and  peace."  "  Be  not  conformed  to  the 
world,  but  be  ye  transformed  by  the  renewing  of  your 
minds."  "  Set  your  affections  not  on  things  which 
are  on  the  earth,  but,  on  things  which  are  above, 
where  Christ  sitteth  at  the  right  hand  of  Grod."  "No 
man  can  serve  two  masters,  ye  cannot  serve  Grod  and 
Mammon."  "  What  concord  hath  Christ  with  Belial  ? 
Ye  cannot  drink  the  cup  of  the  Lord  and  the  cup  of 
devils.  Do  ye  provoke  the  Lord  to  jealousy  ?  Are  we 
stronger  than  He  ?"  Christian  sobriety  and  modera- 
tion, then,  are  requisite  to  our  discipleship.  Have  we 
them  ?     Is  the  Church  elevating  or  sinking  her  stand- 


TEMPERANCE.  133 

ard  of  Christian  attainment  as  to  this  grace  ?  Does  not 
the  age  require  the  former  and  prohibit  the  latter  ;  and 
demand  that  Christians,  whilst  loving  the  men  of  the 
world  with  a  true  philanthropy,  should  protest  against 
the  ivays  of  the  world  with  more  of  holy  decision ; 
and 'for  every  new  advance  in  knowledge  become  more 
weaned  in  holy  self-denial,  from  vanity,  and  sense, 
and  sin,  and  from  "  all  that  is  in  the  world  ;"  from  "  the 
lust  of  the  flesh,  the  lust  of  the  eyes,  and  the  pride 
of  life,"  all  which,  as  the  Apostle  John  testifies,  "  is 
not  of  the  Father,  but  is  of  the  world  ?" 


LECTURE  VI. 


PATIENCE. 


«  AKD  TO   TEMPERANCE,   PATIENCE." 

2  Peter,  i.  6, 


Patience  is,  in  the  estimation  of  some,  a  mere 
drudge  among  the  virtues  ;  and  regarded  as  being,  if 
necessary,  yet  but  servile  in  her  character.  In  Scrip- 
ture, she  is  a  queen,  magnanimous  and  dignified.  It 
is  a  criticism  of  Calvin,  that  the  order,  in  which  these 
several  christian  graces  are  here  presented  by  the 
Apostle  of  the  circumcision,  must  be  regarded  as 
evidently  but  arbitrary,  because  patience  is  made  in 
Peter's  catalogue  to  precede  charity,  when,  in  truth,  it 
must  spring  from  and  succeed  that  grace.  A  man 
must,  in  the  exercise  of  an  evangelical  charity,  love  his 
God  and  his  neighbor,  to  bear  uncomplainingly  ad- 
versity from  the  one  and  injury  from  the  other.  But 
let  us  turn  aside  to  inquire  more  closely,  whether  the 
arrangement  of  these  several  excellencies  of  the  chris- 
tian character,  is  indeed,  as  alleged,  thus  without 
sufficient  cause  ;  and  whether  a  just  connection  be  not 
traceable  amongst  them.  They  are  not,  we  think 
that  it  will  be  found,  presented  as  independent,  the 
one  of  the  other, — entirely  distinct  and  readily  divisi- 


PATIENCE.  135 

ble,  like  the  several  pearls  of  a  necklace,  that  may  be 
parted  without  injury  and  assorted  at  pleasure.  They 
are  rather  like  the  members  of  the  body,  though  dis- 
tinguishable, yet  mutually  dependent,  and  all  needful 
to  the  perfection  and  symmetry  of  the  frame,  and  all 
knitted  in  the  fittest  arrangement,  the  one  to  the  other. 
To  be  truly  a  Christian,  a  man  must  in  some  degree 
combine  them  all.  Some  true  disciples  are,  indeed, 
more  distinguished  by  one  and  some  by  another  of  these 
jewels,  and  some  of  a  Christian's  individual  graces  may 
in  massiveness  and  splendor  far  surpass  others  ;  but  all 
of  them,  the  ruby  of  knowledge,  and  the  pearl  of  faith, 
and  the  diamond  of  charity,  belong  to  the  princely  and 
priestly  array  of  each  son  of  God,  who,  as  king  and 
priest,  shall  follow  the  Lamb  in  His  glory.  Faith,  the 
first  enumerated  by  the  apostle,  cannot  exist  without 
charity,  the  last.  Their  order  does  not  then  determine 
the  date  of  their  origin  in  the  renewed  soul.  But  the 
several  traits  of  true  piety  seem  here  named  by  the 
All- wise  spirit  of  inspiration,  as  they  are  needed,  the 
one  to  become  the  complement  of  the  other  which  has 
preceded  it,  and  as  its  presence  serves  to  correct  the 
excesses,  or  to  supply  the  deficiencies,  of  that  which  has 
gone  before.*  Thus  we  have  seen  virtue,  or  practical 
excellence,  to  be  required  as  a  remedy  and  counterpoise 
against  the  exaggeration  of  a  barren  and  notional  faith. 
Knowledge  is  next  demanded,  to  rectify  the  rudeness 
of  what  some  would  represent  as  all-sufficient,  an  un- 
taught and  unreflecting  and  unprincipled  Virtue.  By 
an  unprincipled  virtue,  we  mean,  of  course,  not  a 
*  See  Appendix,  Note  E. 


136  RELIGIOUS    PROGRESS. 

virtue  reckless  of  all  moral  principle,  but  one  not 
guided  by  intelligent  and  definite  principles.  For  a 
man's  views  become  soon  the  man's  acts.  Principles, 
ignorantly  and  vaguely  held,  are  not  permanently 
efficient  either  to  incite  or  to  control.  His  theory 
becomes  soon  the  discipline  of  his  life — "  as  he  thinketh 
in  his  heart  so  is  he."  Thus  the  intellectual  passes 
over  readily  into  the  practical.  A  man's  knowledge  or 
misconception  of  some  great  truth  becomes  a  blessing 
or  a  curse,  not  only  to  himself  but  to  all  his  neighbors, 
who  may  pass  within  the  range  and  wind  of  his  influ- 
ence. Thus  Rousseau's  eloquent  theories  of  the  dig- 
nity and  purity  of  man  unsophisticated,  in  his  state 
of  Nature,  became  soon  a  law  of  education  and  revolt 
to  his  own  France  not  only,  but  to  all  the  republicans 
of  Europe.  Knowledge,  then — (or  right  views  and 
large  views  of  things  as  they  are) — knowledge,  we  say, 
is  needed  as  the  stay  of  virtue.  And,  then,  comes 
Temperance,  to  balance  the  excesses  of  a  perverted 
and  self-indulgent  knowledge.  And  now,  in  our  text, 
we  see  it  enjoined,  as  if  to  correct  the  acidity  and 
acridity  of  a  sour  and  eccentric  temperance,  that  it 
should  be  grouped  with  patience. 

How  it  is,  and  why  it  is,  that  the  disciples  of 
Temperance,  or  self-restraint,  are  immediately  com- 
mended to  the  cultivation  of  a  gentle  and  forbearing 
spirit,  will,  as  we  think,  appear,  if  we  but  advert  to 
the  petulance  which  all  rigorous  and  abstinent  self- 
control  is  apt  to  foster.  The  man  who  succeeds  in 
denying,  within  himself,  the  promptings  of  Indulgence 
and  Voluptuousness,  is  prone  to  become  in  the  inter- 


PATIENCE.  137 

course  he  holds  with  the  world  without,  harsh  in 
imposing  on  his  less  guarded  neighbor  the  law  of  his 
own  example  ;  and  thus  becomes,  whilst  shutting  out 
the  pleasurable,  but  too  ready  to  let  in  the  irritable. 
Thus,  during  the  great  fast  of  the  Mohammedans,  the 
Ramadan,  observed  by  severe  abstinence  from  food 
through  all  the  hours  of  daylight,  travellers  have  noted 
the  querulous  and  contentious  spirit  that  seems  for  the 
time  to  reign  through  a  Turkish  city.  And  it  was, 
j)erhaps,  not  without  alliance  to  the  same  great  law  of 
human  weakness,  that  after  the  forty  days  of  fasting 
which  Jonah,  in  common  with  the  Ninevites,  probably 
had  observed,  that  he  is  represented  by  Scripture  as 
becoming  at  the  sight  of  Grod's  mercy  to  the  doomed 
heathen,  "  greatly  displeased"  and  "  very  angry."  He 
gave  vent  to  fretfulness  even  in  his  devotions,  and  pro- 
voked from  his  G-od  the  question,  "  Doest  thou  well  to 
be  angry  ?"  Those  who  closely  and  vigilantly  curb 
their  own  natural  impulses  to  indulgence,  are  easily 
made  impatient  by  the  spectacle  of  the  reckless  follies 
and  ungoverned  sins  of  those  around  them.  A  recent 
British  Missionary*  speaks  of  the  devotees  of  Hindooism, 
whose  austerities  are  most  rigid,  and  who  proclaim 
superiority  to  all  passion,  as  being  notorious  for  "a 
general  irritability."  The  ascetic,  of  all  times  and  of 
ill  forms  of  faith,  has  been  subject,  and  not  without 
some  plausibility,  to  the  imputation  of  sourness.  Turn 
over  the  monkish  illuminations,  preserving  the  features 
of  some  Romish  worthy,  eminent  for  his  macerations 
and  fastings,  as  the  saint  of  his  diocese  or  of  his  age, 
*  Buyers'  Recollections  of  Northern  India,  p.  270 


138  RELIGIOUS     PROGRESS. 

and  how  often  do  the  lineaments  bespeak  a  stem 
violence  or  a  querulous  discontent.  The  austerity  of 
an  habitual  self-restraint  was  seen  in  Jerome,  among 
the  Fathers.  So  in  Calvin,  as  compared  with  Luther 
among  the  Reformers,  there  was  more  of  abstinence 
from  what  are  accounted  allowable  relaxations  and 
from  all  genial  enjoyments  ;  and  there  was  also  more 
of  severity  of  temper  and  of  an  iron  inflexibility  of 
character.  Calvin's  immense  and  astounding  industry 
required  a  singular  temperance  to  sustain  it,  and 
hence,  from  the  spirit  and  temper  thus  fostered,  he 
was  ever,  even  by  his  most  admiring  disciples  and  his 
most  attached  inmates,  rather  revered  than  beloved. 
Richard  Baxter  and  Andrew  Fuller,  each  eminent  for 
devotion  and  assiduity  and  usefulness,  and  for  a  con- 
sequent abstinence  from  much  that  to  others  seemed 
needful  relaxation,  had,  as  the  result  of  this  jealous 
abnegation  of  pleasure,  at  least  occasional  manifesta- 
tions of  an  austerity,  that  cut  short  the  fruitless  visit, 
and  denied  remorselessly  to  mere  ceremony,  or  to  idle 
curiosity,  any  large  share  of  the  time,  which  they  so 
valued  and  so  redeemed.  When  summoned  to  reprove 
weakness  or  folly,  the  Kettering  pastor  was  said  to  be 
often  overwhelming  in  his  severity. 

But  patience,  here  and  elsewhere  so  earnestly  en- 
joined, is  at  times  travestied  and  counterfeited.  It  is 
not  a  supine  indifference  to  truth,  or  a  tame  subser- 
viency to  arrogance,  that  the  Scriptures  enjoin.  Let 
us  then,  imploring  of  Him  who  is  its  great  Teacher 
and  Exemplar  His  aids,  to  know  and  practise  this 
grase  arig-ht,  consider 


PATIENCE. 


189 


I.  "What  christian  patience  is  not ; 

II.  Wliat  it  is  ; 

III.  Its  relations  to    other  graces  of  the  religious 
character  ; 

IV.  The  motives  which  should  induce  us  to  culti- 
vate it ;  and 

V.  The  means  of  its  attainment. 

I.  The  patience  of  the  disciple  of  Jesus  is  not, 
then,  stoical  apathy,  nor  acquired  or  affected  obduracy 
to  all  physical  suffering.  The  old  sophists  of  G  reece, 
who  denied  the  existence  of  pain,  in  order  thus  to  pro- 
claim their  own  superiority  to  the  sensitive  and  com- 
plaining around  them  ; — the  Hindoo  Yogee,  swinging 
suspended  by  his  feet  from  a  tree,  and  with  his  hair 
trailing  downward  over  a  smoking  fire  ; — the  Simeon 
Stylites,  who  to  the  wonder  of  his  contemporaries  in 
the  early,  but  already  corrupted,  ages  of  Eastern 
Christianity,  held  amid  the  sultry  heats  of  summer, 
and  the  storms  of  winter,  in  the  noon-day  blaze  and 
in  the  gloom  of  midnight,  his  place  unmoved  on  the 
narrow  summit  of  a  tall  column  for  successive  years, 
as  an  act  of  exalted  piety  ; — and  the  monkish  inmate 
of  La  Trappe,  denying  himself  the  exercise  of  speech, 
and  the  indulgence  of  converse  even  with  his  brother 
recluses,  until,  as  was  said  of  one  of  them,  after  attend- 
ing for  a  time  in  the  infirmary  of  their  edifice,  on  the 
death-bed  of  a  younger  brother  of  the  order,  he  dis- 
covered for'  the  first  time,  his  own  relationship — the 
tie  of  kindred  binding  the  silent  watcher  to  the  silent 
■  sufferer,  only  when,  days  after,  he  read  on  the  grave- 
stone the  name  and  age  of  his  patient  in  the  hospital, 


140  RELIGIOUS    PROGRESS. 

and  found  him  to  be  his  own  son  : — none  of  them  all 
(according  to  our  views  of  evangelical  patience,)  can 
claim  the  honors  of  that  real  and  celestial  grace.  It 
is  not  affected  or  studied  insensibility  to  pain,  if  that 
pain  be  self-inflicted,  rather  than  sent  and  apportioned 
of  Grod ;  or,  as  Paul  describes  it,  if  it  be  the  "  bodily 
exercise  which  profiteth  little," — an  uncommanded 
cross,  and  therefore  a  cross  caricatured  and  unblest. 

2.  Nor,  much  less,  is  christian  patience  a  meek  in- 
difference to  all  error  and  wickedness  in  the  world 
around  us.  Such  tolerance  is  often  connivance  at  sin, 
and  confederacy  with  Hell.  If  that  were  requisite  to 
spiritual  meekness,  the  apostles  were  the  least  meek 
of  mankind  ;  for  their  indignant  denunciation  of  idol- 
atry and  sin  made  them  to  be  charged  with  having 
turned  the  world  upside  down.  But  yet  some  Chris- 
tians form  to  themselves  an  idea  of  christian  patience, 
that  swallows  up  all  christian  boldness,  decision,  and 
constancy.  The  old  law  required  love  to  be  shown  to 
a  brother  by  not  suffering  sin  upon  him,  and  in  the 
new  dispensation  the  churches  were  commended -that 
would  not  suffer  the  doctrines  of  Jezebel,  or  the  claims 
of  false  apostles.  It  was  not  a  pious  patience  that 
Eli  showed  when  he  left  unrestrained  the  profligacy 
of  his  sons,  Hophni  and  Phinehas ;  nor  does  the  Bible 
praise,  as  godly  forbearance,  the  false  tenderness  and 
the  guilty  tolerance  that  David,  in  like  manner, 
showed  to  the  brutish  Amnon,  and  to  the  plausible 
and  heartless  Absalom.  The  standard  of  christian 
piety  adopted  by  some,  which  is  all  softness  and  re- 
pose, w  uld  have  no  room  for  men  like  the  lion-hearted 


PATIENCE.  141 

Knox,  who  did,  under  God,  so  thorough  and  good  a 
work,  before  a  licentious  court,  and  a  frowning  nobility, 
an!  a  raging  priesthood,  for  the  Scottish  nation.  It 
would  show  no  sympathy  for  the  bearing  of  the  noble 
daughter  of  that  groat  reformer,  Knox — the  child  of  one 
man  of  God,  and  the  wife  of  another — Mrs.  Welsh, 
when  she  went  to  ask  from  that  profane  and  arbitrary 
sovereign,  James  I.,  the  liberation  of  her  eminent  and 
devout  husband,  John  "Welsh.  On  being  told  by  the 
King,  that  if  she  would  persuade  her  husband  to  de- 
sist from  his  rebellious  preaching,  her  request  should 
be  granted,  the  Christian  woman,  indignant  at  the 
thought  of  such  treason  to  a  higher  monarch,  is  said 
to  have  raised  the  apron  she  wore,  and  holding  it  up, 
replied  :  "  Please  your  Majesty,  rather  than  ask  him 
do  that,  I  would  catch  his  head  there."  She  rather 
chose  to  witness  his  decapitation,  a  martyr  like  the 
Baptist,  than  to  see  him  for  life  and  freedom  selling 
the  Truth  and  Heaven.  To  the  silken  views  of  chris- 
tian patience  which  some  favor,  here  would  seem  to 
have  been  no  patience.  To  us,  on  the  contrary.  Pa- 
tience shines  forth  in  such  a  spirit  at  such  a  time, 
triumphant.  It  is  the  patience  that  dares  brave  all 
anger,  and  loss,  and  suffering ;  but  that  dares  not  sac- 
rifice truth  or  duty,  or  make  the  fear  of  God  to  vail 
to  the  fear  of  man.  And,  if  we  derive  our  views  of 
this  grace  from  the  apostle  of  the  Gentiles,  or  from 
his  Lord  and  Master,  it  will  seem  that  true  meekness 
may  coexist  with  the  utterance  of  sharp  reproofs,  and 
may  })our  forth  the  most  lofty  and  indignant  denuncia- 
tion.    The  same  Paul,  who  among  inexperienced  dis- 


142  RELIGIOUS     PROGRESS. 

ciples  was  forbearing,  and  as  he  describes  it,  showed 
himself  "  gentle,  even  as  a  nurse,"*  could,  in  other 
scenes,  take  the  tone  of  injured  innocence  and  insulted 
majesty,  and  bid  the  Philippian  magistrates  come  and 
release  him,  and  resolutely  appeal  to  Caesar,  where  his 
own  rights, — those  of  a  despised  apostle, — were  about 
to  be  remorselessly  crushed  between  the  two  mill-stones 
of  an  intriguing  Jewish  priesthood  on  the  one  hand, 
and  of  a  Roman  praetor's  love  of  popularity  on  the 
other.  And  when  duty  required  it,  he  could  denounce 
Ely  mas,  and  resist  a  fellow-apostle,  Peter,  though  that 
honored  man  had  been  in  the  Lord  before  him.  He 
left  it  in  charge  to  christian  ministers,  on  the  one 
hand,  that  they  must  not,  as  the  servants  of  the  Lord, 
strive,  and  yet  on  the  other,  those  who  sin  these  pas- 
tors must  rebuke,  before  all ;  and  reprove,  rebuke,  and 
exhort  with  all  authority.  In  his  Master's  example, 
the  meekness  that  hid  not  its  face,  as  a  victim,  from 
shame  and  from  spitting,  was  yet  blended  with  the 
authority  and  fearless  truthfulness  that  branded  Herod 
as  a  "  fox,"  and  Judas  as  a  "  son  of  perdition,"  and  the 
Pharisees  as  whited  sepulchres,  and  a  generation  of  vi- 
pers ;  whilst  two  of  his  parables  painted  them  as  fraud- 
ulent and  remorseless  husbandmen,  that  had  murdered 
the  heir  to  seize  the  heritage  of  which  they  were 
justly  but  the  renters.  In  the  temple  he  wielded  the 
scourge  against  those  who  had  made  that  sacred  ed- 
ifice a  den  of  thieves,  and  blasted  the  fig-tree,  as  an 
acted  parable  of  warning  to  fruitless  pretensions  in 
religion.  Follow  Him  throughout  His  career,  from  his 
*    1  Thess.  ii.  1. 


PATIENCE.  143 

first  to  his  second  Advent.     As  a  Lamb  he  bleeds  and 
is  passive,  in  the    atonement,  under    the  wrath   due 
to  our  sins.     But  wait  for  the  Second  Advent ; — and 
then,  as  Prophecy  paints  the  scene,  nations  and  their 
kings  quail  before  the  wrath   of  the  Lamb,  come  the 
second  time  "  without  sin,  unto  salvation^'  and  unto 
judgment.     Now  some,  in  their  portraitures  of  chris- 
tian gentleness,  forget  all  this.     They  would  wrap  up 
and  bind  close,  in  that  soft,  lamb-like  fleece  of  an  un- 
complaining gentleness,  both  the  rod  of  apostleship  with 
which  Paul  proposed  to  visit  the  erring  Christians  of 
Corinth, — and  the  sword  of  the  magistrate,  God's  min- 
ister waiting  on  his  appointed  work  of  restraint  and 
retribution ;    and  going  yet  farther,  they  would  dis- 
card, as  obsolete,  or  unreal,  the  thunder-bolts  of  the 
avenging  Grod.     More  tender  than   is  the  tenderness 
of  Jehovah  himself,  and  in  their  mercy  unmerciful  to 
the  letter  and  spirit  of  Scripture,  they  would  (savage 
in   their   mistaken   defence   of    mercy)    throttle    and 
strangle,  in  the  gripe  of  their  rude  criticism,  the  worm 
that  shall  never  die.     They  would  let  in  an  ocean  of 
false  sympathy  and  false  exegesis,  that  should  extin- 
guish the  unquenchable  fires  of  the  pit.     "  God  is  not 
slack,"  says  an  apostle,  "  as  some  men  count  slack- 
ness."    But  these  reasoners  confound  patience  with 
slackness,  and  leave  to  the  Monarch  of  the  universe 
the  character  of  the  Drone  Kings  of  early  French  his- 
tory ;   as  if  He  were  a  mere  Do-nought,  too  slow,  in- 
different, and  feeble  to  awe  by  his  frown,  or  repress  by 
his  justice,  the  transgressors  and  troublers  of  his  Uni- 
versal Dominion 


144  REMGIOUS     PROGRESS. 

II.  "What,  then,  is    Christian    Patience?     We   un- 
^ierstand  by  it,  "A  calm  endurance  of  evil  for  God's 
sake."     Now,  evil  is  both  physical  and  moral.     Phys- 
ical  evil,    coming   either    by    G-od's    appointment   or 
by  man's  act,  is  that  falling  especially  on  the  body. 
Moral  evil  is  that  occurring  by  God's  permission,  and 
affects  chiefly  the  soul.     Physical  evil  includes  pain, 
want,  disease,  and  death:  moral,  errors,  sorrows  of 
soul,   and  wickedness,   in  all  its  varying  shades,  and 
in  all  its  hideous  shapes.     Now,  some  evil  may  thus 
be  occasioned  directly  by  the  act  of  God,  and  other 
evil  may  be  merely  the  act  of  wicked  and  unreason- 
able men,  only  permitted  and  overruled  by  God.     Far 
as  the  moral  evil  is  an  error  affecting  general  happi- 
ness, or   a  wickedness  perilling  the   individual    soul, 
true  piety  may  sternly  denounce  the  wrong,  whilst  it 
bears   patiently  the    personal    suffering   which    that 
wrong  occasions.    Taken  in  this  largest  sense,  patience 
includes  the  grace  of  meekness,  from  which  however, 
in   other   portions   of   Scripture,    it   is   distinguished. 
Meekness  is  the  quiet  endurance  of  wrong  from  man, 
and  Patience  (when  thus  considered  apart  from  meek- 
ness)  is   the   endurance   of   woe    appointed    of   God. 
Moses  was  the  brightest  example  of  one  grace,  in  the 
Scripture,  which  pronounced  him  the  meekest  of  men, 
because  of  his  great  serenity  under  the  many  contra- 
dictions, that  he  endured  from  the  perverseness  of  the 
chosen  tribes.     Job,  in  his  unequalled  afflictions  from 
God,  and  in  his  unmurmuring  submission  to  them,  at 
least  in  their  first  stages,  is  called  the   brightest  ex- 
hibition of  the  other — the  most  patient  of  mere  men. 


PATIENCE.  145 

But  in  our  text,  we  suppose  the  word  patience  to  in- 
(ilude  both  meekness  and  patience  strictly  so  called. 
It  is  the  quiet  endurance  of  evil  for  God's  sake. 
That  it  is  endured,  implies  that  the  evil  is  not  self- 
invented  and  self-inflicted.  The  self-torturing  Flagel- 
lants, who  went  through  Catholic  Europe  in  the  mid- 
dle ages,  rending  their  flesh  with  scourges,  were  not 
Christian  penitents  ;  for  it  might  be  asked  of  them  in 
Christ's  name,  "  Who  hath  required  this  at  ^our 
hands  ?"  Or  if  the  physical  evil  be  the  effect  of  our 
own  utter  neglect,  the  passive  endurance  of  it  is  not 
sufficient  to  make  the  sufferer  a  patient  Christian,  in 
the  truest  sense  of  those  terms.  The  cottager,  quietly 
bearing  the  showers  that  beat  upon  him  through  the 
rents  of  a  hovel,  which  his  own  slothfulness  has  left 
to  decay  and  ruin,  is  deserving  of  censure  quite  as 
much  as  of  commiseration ;  and  the  husbandman, 
gentle  and  unrepining  under  the  pressure  of  a  famine 
which  his  own  shiftlessness  has  produced,  is  a  kindred 
instance  of  sluggishness  rather  than  saintliness.  Such 
sorrows,  so  incurred,  are  borne,  it  is  to  be  feared,  for 
sloth's  sake,  rather  than  for  God's  sake.  Christian 
prudence  requires  the  patient  and  confiding  disciple, 
whilst  submitting  to  inevitable  evil  as  God's  appoii  t- 
ment,  yet  not  to  invite  or  endure  causelessly  what 
may  honorably  and  uprightly  be  avoided.  It  bids  the 
persecuted  of  one  city  to  flee  to  another  city.  It  does 
not  authorize  escape,  or  peace,  as  purchased  by  col- 
lusion with  godless  errors  or  by  submission  to  any  im- 
pious laws  of  a  human  magistracy  ;  and  here  christian 
patience  must  obey  God,  rather  than  man,  and  shews 

7 


146  RELIGIOUS    PROGRESS. 

itself,  not  by  obeying  the  wrong  law,  and  thus  evading 
the  penalty,  but  by  breaking  the  law  to  obey  God, 
and  then  braving  for  man's  sake  the  penalty  of  con- 
fiscation, incarceration  and  death,  if  exile  cannot  re- 
lease from  it. 

*  Against  moral  evil  it  must  bear  patiently  its  bold 
protest ;  but  the  want  of  immediate  effect  to  that  pro- 
test, and  the  presence  of  that  evil  in  the  world,  and  its 
apparent  and  temporary  triumph,  must  not  shake  the 
Christian's  patient  reliance  on  the  wisdom  and  jus- 
tice of  the  Divine  Providence.  For  Christian  patience 
is  essentially  hopeful.  It  must  quietly  wait  for  the 
salvation  of  God.  The  New  Testament  presents, 
therefore,  hope  and  patience,  as  closely  entwined.  So 
is  it  also,  in  the  New  Testament  represented  as  bound 
up  with  christian  diligence,  or  industry.  The  Bible 
tells  us  of  "patient  continuance  in  well-doing,"  and 
sends  the  pleader  of  the  promises  and  the  keeper  of 
God's  precepts  to  learn  of  the  husbandman,  who,  hav- 
ing sown  the  seed,  must  have  long  patience  for  the 
harvest.  Christian  patience,  then,  it  will  be  seen,  in- 
cludes meekness  under  injury,  submission  to  adver- 
sity, hopefulness  in  seasons  of  darkness,  perseverance 
amid  difficulties,  and  constancy  in  times  of  sore  trial. 
It  requires  a  subjugation  of  our  native  fretfulness,  re- 
vengefulness,  distrust,  and  rashness.  It  shows  us 
heroism  as  possible,  not  only  for  the  martyr,  grappling, 
as  a  doomed  man,  with  some  great  error  or  wrong ; 
but  also  amid  the  petty  annoyances  and  daily  discom- 
forts of  the  workshop  and  the  exchange,  the  mother's 
nursery  and  the  teacher's  school-room.     It  shows  like 


PAT  FENCE.  147 

conflicts,  here  too,  possible,  and  a  like  crown,  here  too, 
attainable.  Superior  strength  in  the  brute  race  is 
generally  attended  with  superior  gentleness ;  the  ox 
and  the  elephant  are  less  quarrelsome  than  the  cur 
and  the  scorpion :  and  Christians  are  to  show  in  like 
manner,  the  superior  might  of  their  souls  and  of  their 
creed,  by  longer  endurance. 

III.  We  have  seen  its  needfulness  to  fill  out  chris- 
tian temperance.  Let  us  observe,  now,  its  relations  to 
other  graces  of  the  religious  character.  All  those 
graces  which  in  our  text  are  made  to  precede  it, — 
faith,  virtue,  and  knowledge, — are,  together  with  tem- 
perance, made  more  or  less  to  depend  upon  it ;  and  so 
is  it  also  with  the  graces,  which  in  the  apostle's  enu- 
meration follow  it, — godliness,  brotherly  kindness,  and 
charity. 

Ours  is  a  day  of  religious  effort,  for  reform  at  home, 
and  evangelization  abroad.  Look  at  the  need  of 
patience  to  preserve  the  spirit  of  the  laborers  in  work- 
ing order,  and  to  render  their  endeavors  successful. 
Mackintosh  praises  Wilberforce  as  being  a  model  re- 
former, because  of  his  immoveable  sweetness,  as  well 
as  his  inflexible  persistency.  But  many  good  men 
assay,  without  this  patient  sweetness,  to  reform  others 
by  the  virtual  tyranny  of  harsh  and  unreasoning 
criminations.  They  resort  to  moral  coercion,  where 
they  should  use  moral  suasion.  There  are  indeed 
social  reforms  which,  besides  mere  moral  persuasion, 
may,  at  the  fitting  time,  invoke  the  aid  of  the  statute 
and  the  penalty  against  the  troublers  of  the  common- 
wealth.    But  each  method,  the  gentler  and  the  sterner, 


148  RELIGIOUS     PROGRESS. 

is  beautiful  in  its  fitting  season.  In  a  republic,  laws 
must,  to  be  abiding,  have  more  or  less  a  basis  in  the 
precedent  efficacy  of  moral  argument  and  appeal  in 
informing  and  arousing  the  public  conscience,  and  in 
creating  a  sound  public  opinion.  And  as  the  farmer 
plucks  not  the  half-grown  and  acid  fruit,  but  waits 
for  time,  and  the  sun-beam  and  the  rain-drop,  to  round 
and  mellow  and  ripen  it ; — nor  puts  his  sickle  into  the 
field  where  the  stalks  are  yet  green,  and  the  ears  moist 
and  unfilled,  so  must  social  reform  patiently  adjust  its 
measures  and  bide  its  time,  and  do  everything  in  its 
own  order.  It  must  prepare  the  soil  and  scatter  the 
seed  ;  and,  then,  wait  and  pray  for  sun  and  shower, 
ere  it  raises  the  sickle,  much  less  lifts  the  flail.  It  is 
so  in  individual  amendment,  or  the  conversion  of  the 
solitary  inquirer  and  penitent.  When  Scott,  the  com- 
mentator, was  groping  his  sincere  and  prayerful  way 
from  the  dread  errors  of  Socinianism,  towards  those 
evangelical  views,  of  which  he  was  in  later  life  so 
distinguished  an  ornament  and  champion,  John  New- 
ton avoided,  in  the  early  stages  of  the  correspondence 
opened  between  them,  the  controversy  which  the  learner 
would  fain  have  invited.  It  was  not  the  time.  He 
waited — was  patient  and  hopeful,  and  gentle, — and 
Scott,  one  day  to  be  the  commentator,  was  born  into 
the  church  of  Christ,  a  fellow-witness  for  the  great 
truths  that  Newton  loved.  It  is  so  in  moral  and 
political  reform,  as  dealing  with  large  masses  of  men. 
France  in  her  first  Revolution  began,  too  early  and 
precipitately,  the  propagandism  of  Democracy  among 
nations  who  were  as  yet  unfit  for  it.     The  patriots  of 


PATIENCE.  149 

OUT  own  country,  have  they  never  hoped  too  soon  an  J 
hoped  too  much  for  other  lands,  when  as  yet  the  peo- 
ple of  those  countries  had  not  the  moral  culture  and 
religious  principle,  that  should  precede  and  sustain 
free  institutions  ?  The  wise  reformer  is  a  patient 
man.  And  not  only  does  he  allot  the  required  time, 
and  await  the  natural  order  of  the  changes  which  he 
desires  ;  but  he  estimates  soberly  the  relative  value  of 
the  alterations  which  he  is  seeking.  He  would  not 
hazard  political  convulsions,  involving  certain  evil  and 
uncertain  good,  for  the  removal  of  lighter  and  tolerable 
evils,  nor  risk  the  setting  all  the  forests  of  a  mountain- 
range  on  fire,  in  the  simple  endeavor  to  scorch  one 
poor  snake  in  his  den. 

2.  Again,  as  a  preservative  of  faith  and  knowledge 
and  godliness,  patience  is  indispensable.  It  was  said 
by  the  illustrious  philosopher  Newton,  that,  if  he  had 
accomplished  anything  in  science,  it  had  been  "  by 
dint  of  patient  thought."  The  believer  in  Scripture, 
who  would  feed,  from  its  full  pages,  his  faith  and 
knowledge  and  piety  into  richer  development  and 
greater  vigor,  must  be  patient  in  searching — patient  in 
pondering  and  comparing, — and  patient  in  praying 
over  those  sacred  lines.  Injury  has  at  times  been 
done,  and  that  by  truly  good  men,  to  the  honor  of  the 
Bible,  by  attaching  the  precipitate  interpretations, 
which  their  over-hot  and  impatient  haste  had  made,  to 
the  pages  of  unfulfilled  prophecy.  They  have  mis- 
reckoned  the  calendar  of  the  Divine  dispensations, 
and,  then,  because  He  did  not  appear  at  the  unwarrant- 
ed   appointment   which   they  in   their   temerity  had 


150  RELIGIOUS     PROGRESS. 

undertaken  to  make  for  Him,  some  at  least  of  tHeir 
precipitate  and  impatient  disciples  have,  on  the  fail- 
ure of  the  expected  era  to  dawn  when  it  had  been 
predicted,  renounced  impatiently  the  verity  of  the 
records  thus  impatiently  interpreted ;  and  the  head- 
long interpreter  became  thus  the  sudden  convert  to 
infidelity.  So,  the  followers  of  Sweden  borg,  weary  of 
awaiting,  with  due  and  Christian  patience,  the  last 
judgment,  and  the  general  resurrection,  as  the  Scrip- 
ture promises  them,  have  professed  to  find  in  the  poor 
and  petty  incident  of  their  leader's  illumination,  in  a 
certain  year  of  the  last  century,  the  accomplishment 
of  all  these  vast  and  glorious  predictions.  The  world 
was  judged  when  the  Swedish  noble  received  his 
spiritual  enlightening.  Tired  of  waiting  till  the  ful- 
ness of  God's  times  permitted  them  to  hear  along  the 
heavens  the  wheels  of  His  descending  chariot,  and  to 
catch  the  gleam  of  His  approaching  throne,  they  have 
set  themselves  down,  in  their  unscriptural  impatience, 
to  belittle  and  antedate  and  precipitate  the  great  Fact 
on  which,  as  on  a  hinge,  revolves  all  History, — ^the  last 
audit  of  the  race  before  its  Maker  and  Judge. 

A  similar  spirit  of  impatience  leads  others  to  set 
themselves  prematurely  to  the  task  of  reconciling  the 
statements  of  Scripture  with  each  new  fashion  in 
Natural  Science.  Much  was  said  but  recently  of  As- 
tronomy and  its  galaxies,  and  the  star-dust,  out  of 
which  new  worlds  were  even  now  in  process  of  crea- 
tion. Some  would,  perhaps,  among  Scripture  inter- 
preters, have  set  themselves  down  on  this  assumed 
fact  to  hew  Revelation  into  harmony  with  it,  alarmed 


PATIENCE.  151 

lest  the  0-ospel  should  not  keep  itself  abreast  ol  the  last 
philosophical  hypothesis.  But  a  little  patience  has 
dispersed  the  fancied  fact.  It  proves  a  mere  figment, 
and  the  Rosse  telescope  has  saved  impatient  exegetes 
from  the  necessity  of  volunteering,  as  some  perhaps 
would  soon  have  done,  to  serve  on  the  forlorn  hope  of 
finding  star-dust  in  the  Old  or  New  Testament.  So 
Phrenology,  a  few  years  since,  in  the  hands  of  some 
of  its  champions,  was  held  to  have  disproved  the  Scrip- 
tural doctrines  of  Human  Accountability  and  Deprav- 
ity. A  man  was  not  answerable  for  the  shape  of  his 
skull,  or  the  character,  morally,  of  his  soul.  In  short, 
new  and  yet  immature  sciences,  or  transient  theories, 
are  perpetually  assailing  the  Scriptures  and  the  pulpit, 
because  the  pulpit  and  the  Scriptures  do  not  lend 
themselves  as  advertising  journals  to  the  newest  fan- 
tasy, and  because  they  will  believe,  in  their  stolid  ig- 
norance, that  Grod  understood  the  nature  of  the  race 
and  the  history  of  the  world  which  He  himself  had 
made.  Yet  each  score  of  years  almost  a  fresh  assault 
is  made  on  the  verity  of  Scripture,  by  some  critic  or 
sciolist,  who  cries  out,  to  use  the  image  recently  em- 
ployed by  a  French  statesman,  that  he  is  encountering 
the  persecutions  of  a  Galileo,  when  in  fact  he  is  only 
attempting  to  repeat  the  frenzy  of  an  Erostratus.* 
Let  Science  become  only  mature,  and  modest  in  its 
maturity,  and  it  will  be  found,  as  it  has  eventually 
in  ages  past  been  evermore  found,  that  none  of  its  true 
discoveries  have  shaken,  by  one  hair-breadth,  the  state- 
ments of  this  volume.  Let  Science  delve,  it  will  not 
*  M.  Thiers  in  the  Constit.  Assembly. 


152  RELIGIOUS    PROGRESS. 

jar  the  integrity  of  our  foundations  ;  let  it  soar,  it  can- 
not go  past  the  visions  of  Prophecy,  and  the  state- 
ments of  the  Griver  and  God  of  Prophecy.  It  is  an 
error,  to  sit  down  at  the  call  of  every  apprentice-sci- 
ence, yet  raw,  and  imperfect,  and  impertinent,  to  rec- 
oncile Revelation  to  it,  before  the  science  has  become 
reconciled  to,  and  consistent  with  itself. 

3.  Again,  virtue,  and  godliness,  and  charity, — all 
practical  christian  excellencies,  need  patience  for  their 
development.  "  Confidence,"  said  a  British  statesman, 
"  is  a  plant  of  slow  growth."  True,  consistent  piety 
is  also  such,  and  needs  long  and  meek  study  of  God's 
providence  and  Word  to  refine  and  perfect  it.  "  Pa- 
tient continuance  in  well-doing,"  is  urged  by  the  apos- 
tle. In  the  shape  of  perseverance,  it  is  a  most  im- 
portant element  in  national  and  individual  character. 
How  much  is  possible  to  this,  the  missionary  history 
of  Carey  and  Eliot  may  show.  We  see  the  latter  in 
his  old  age  reducing  to  letters  a  barbarian  language, 
before  unwritten,  and  after  having  mastered  its  seem- 
ingly intractaWe  elements,  at  the  close  of  his  Indian 
Grammar  writing,  "  Prayer  and  pains  through  faith 
in  Jesus  Christ,  can  do  anything."  In  nations  we  see 
how  much  the  Celtic  races  have  suifered,  compared 
with  the  Teutonic,  from  their  lack  of  persevering  and 
patient  energy  in  active  enterprise.  In  the  patient 
persistence  in  matters  of  sentiment  and  of  hereditary 
custom,  they  are  indeed  not  defective,  but  eminent. 
In  active  effort,  however,  those  of  the  other  race  have 
outrun  them,  by  more  resolute  perseverance  in  follow- 
ing up  the  course  of  exertion,  upon  which  they  have 


PATIENCE.  153 

onco  entered.  Carey  said,  modestly,  in  his  old  age, 
when  his  grammars  and  versions  of  Holy  Scripture 
were  almost  a  library  in  themselves,  "  I  can  do  one 
thing — T  can  phd."  Men,  families,  nations,  have 
pined  and  dwindled  because  they  could  not  plod. 
They  were  ardent,  impulsive,  and  adventurous,  but 
lacked  the  persisting  patience  that  mocks  at  difhculty, 
and  that,  under  God,  commands  success.  A  want  of 
patience,  in  the  slow,  toilsome  study  of  truth,  prefer- 
ring the  discovery  and  announcement  of  mere  novelty, 
as  a  more  compendious  road  to  fame,  has  been  the 
secret  origin  of  many  of  the  extravagancies  of  Ger- 
man Neology.  And,  in  the  mart,  as  in  the  schools,  "  a 
making  haste  to  be  rich,"  the  impatience  that  spurns 
slow  gains,  and  sneers  at  plodding  industry,  has  kindled 
in  individuals,  and  in  whole  communities,  a  rage  for 
speculation,  that,  like  some  fiery  fever,  has  ruinously 
exhausted,  whilst  it  most  fiercely  excited  its  victim. 
And  even  thus  is  it,  in  the  highest  interests  of  the 
Christian.  In  the  soul's  struggle  heavenward  we  do 
well  to  recollect  that  he  "  who  endureth  to  the  end" 
shall  be  saved,  and  that  by  faith  and  patience  we  in- 
herit the  promises. 

IV.  More  briefly,  let  us  now  consider  the  motives 
that  should  persuade  us  to  be  patient,  as  Christians. 
Far  as  patience  inclules  meekness  under  wrongs  of 
our  fellow-men,  we  must  forgive,  or  we  may  not  hope 
ourselves  before  God  to  be  forgiven.  Christ  laid  the 
axe  where  no  earthly  reformer  would  have  dared  to 
place  it,  at  the  root  of  revengefulness.  The  christian 
law  of  morals  gropes  in  the  heart  of  every  petitioner, 

7* 


154  RELIGIOUS     PROGRESS. 

oft  as  lie  prays,  and  it  bids  him  pray  without  ceasing. 
We  arc  warned  again,  that  in  yielding  to  impatience 
and  anger,  we  cease  to  possess  our  own  souls ;  and  as 
is  darkly  intimated,  Satan  takes  hold  of  the  deserted 
rudder  and  wields  the  ungoverned  helm,  and  drives 
before  him  the  infuriated  and  imbruted  man.  Cain, 
had  he  but  curbed  his  impatient  envy,  need  not  have 
bequeathed  his  name  and  warning  to  all  times,  as  the 
first  murderer  and  fratricide  ;  and  Christ  told  us  that 
he  who  hates  his  brother  in  his  heart  is  already,  in  the 
germ  and  e'-'once,  a  murderer  ; — the  first  act  of  Cain's 
sin  is  begun  within  him.  Far,  again,  as  patience  in- 
cludes submission  to  the  Divine  appointments,  let  us 
remark,  that  our  trials  are  lessened  by  serene  meek- 
ness and  resignation.  God  lightens  and  removes  them 
more  early,  and  they  do  not  so  deeply  wound  and  em- 
poison the  soul.  But  he  who  frets  and  fights  against 
God,  in  the  language  of  ancient  prophecy,  like  a  bul- 
lock unaccustomed  to  the  yoke,  drives  the  deeper  into 
his  own  flesh  the  goad  against  which  he  vainly  kicks. 
We  are  to  remember,  too,  the  necessity  of  this  grace 
to  success  and  influence  with  our  fellow-men.  It  is 
the  patient  perseverance  in  well-doing  that  builds  up 
consistency,  and  influence,  and  weight  of  character. 
We  are,  again,  all  to  remember  our  own  unworthiness 
before  God,  and  our  liability  to  pay  ten  thousand 
talents,  fo»  which  infinite  and  endless  torments  would 
be  no  sufficient  amends ;  ere,  in  our  fretfulness,  we  chide 
man  harshly,  or  murmur  bitterly  against  our  God  and 
His  Providence.  Nor  is  it  unfitting,  that  we  remem- 
ber how  much  of  mercy  and  kindness    there   is   in 


PATIENCE.  155 

God's  allotments ; — and  how,  by  the  general  presence 
of  afTliction,  God  has  provided,  in  every  sphere,  the 
most  obscure  and  secluded  even,  a  scene  where  He 
may  be  glorified,  and  where  the  power  of  His  religion 
and  grace  may  be  illustrated  ; — and  how,  out  of  such 
trials  meekly  borne.  He  weaves  the  confessor's  wreath, 
and  the  martyr's  crown,  and  makes  the  blood  of  his 
slain  servants  the  seed  of  his  Church,  whilst  the 
wrath  of  man  is  forced  to  praise  Him,  and  the  re- 
mainder of  wrath  is  restrained.  Are  we  tempted  to 
impatience  and  anger  with  some  erring  and  injurious 
fellow-mortal  ?  Let  us  test  the  old  Puritan  dilemma 
in  such  a  case.  The  offender  is  a  Christian,  or  a 
child  of  Hell.  If  already,  or  yet  to  become,  the  first, 
we  shall  in  Heaven  not  remember  with  pleasure,  re- 
vengeful and  retaliatory  wrongs  against  one  of  our 
brethren  and  of  Christ's  people.  If  an  enemy  of  God, 
and  an  heir  of  His  wrath,  he  is  soon  to  endure  more 
than  man  can  inflict,  and  the  bar  to  which  he  is  rush- 
ing is  one  at  which  strict  Justice  and  unforgetting 
Memory  preside.  Let  us  dread  snatching  into  our 
hands  the  sceptre  of  Him  who  has  said,  "  Vengeance 
is  MINE,"  and  then  pronouncing  rash  and  false  judg- 
ment, rooting  up  the  wheat  with  the  tares,  and  mak- 
ing sad  the  heart  of  the  righteous,  whom  God  has  not 
made  sad.  The  question  of  the  Judge  of  all  the 
earth  to  the  over-fretted  patriarch,  has  much  of  dread 
significance  :  "  Wilt  thou  also  disannul  my  judgment  ? 
Wilt  thou  condemn  me  that  thou  may  est  be  right- 
ous  ?"*  Much  of  our  impatience  is  a  virtual  disan- 
*  Job  xl.  8. 


156  RELIGIOUS     PROGRESS. 

nulling  of  God's  decisions,  and  a  distinct  intimation 
that  his  forbearance  is  wanting  in  righteousness. 

Y.  "We  see  why  patience  is  to  be  desired,  but  how  is 
it  to  be  attained  ?  "We  answer,  by  the  Scriptures, — 
and  prayer, — and  communion  with  Christ. 

— By  the  study  of  Scripture.  We  see  there  glorious 
examples  and  inspiriting  promises,  and  the  most 
solemn  warnings,  and  the  most  apposite  models  and 
precepts.  We  see  the  kind  and  gracious  end  of  the 
Lord  in  the  trials  of  Job ;  and  how  it  was  not  in  vain, 
that  David  bore  the  railings  of  Shimei ;  and  that  Heze- 
kiah  spread  before  the  Lord  the  letter  of  Rabshakeh, 
the  spiteful  and  blasphemous  emissary  of  the  Grentile 
king.  We  see  in  Moses,  forbidden  to  enter  Canaan, 
the  effects  of  a  rash  word  upon  a  career  otherwise 
lustrous  with  its  eminent  meekness  ;  and  are  warned 
by  an  apostle  how  great  a  matter  a  little  fire  kindleth, 
and  how  untameable  an  evil  is  the  tongue  when  once 
set  on  fire  of  hell.  Scripture  is  thus  a  gallery,  rich 
with  the  most  animating  portraitures  and  vivid  battle- 
pieces  of  those  who  by  faith  wrestled  and  conquered. 
It  is  an  armory  all  hung  with  the  shields  of  the 
promises,  that  in  the  hands  of  earlier  combatants  foiled 
every  arrow,  and  quenched  the  burning  dart,  and  sent 
Satan  back  frustrated  and  shamed  and  spoiled  of  his 
prey. 

— Let  us  pray.  Does  the  spirit  in  us  lust  to  envy  ? 
And  would  envy  swell  into  wrath,  or  blasphemy,  or 
murder?  The  apostle's  reply  is,  "He,"  our  Grod, 
"  giveth  more  grace."  And  he  gives  it  in  answer  to 
prayer.      The    apostles,  when   bidden   by  their   Lord 


PATIENCE.  157 

often  to  forgive  the  offending  and  injurious,  prayed, 
"  Lord,  increase  our  faith."  Repeat  the  petition. 
For  its  teacher  yet  lives  to  be  its  answerer.  Seek  also 
a  just  and  lively  sense  of  your  own  provocations  and 
inconsistencies ;  and  sin,  thus  felt  as  a  burden  before 
Grod,  will  make  the  burdens  imposed  by  the  sins  of 
others  and  your  own  adversity,  to  seem  of  less  weight 
and  grievousness  in  their  pressure  upon  you. 

— Above  all,  be  in  communion,  much  and  habitually, 
with  Christ,  You  see  your  Saviour  in  Gethsemane 
unwilling  to  decline  the  cup  which  the  Father  had 
appointed  Him.  You  hear  on  the  cross  his  dying 
breath  expended  in  intercession  for  his  murderers.  As 
even  a  Rousseau  in  his  infidelity  looked  on  that  scene, 
and  contrasted  it  with  the  death  of  Socrates,  he  saw  in 
the  departing  moments  of  Jesus  "  the  death  of  a  Grod." 
Stephen  saw  it  more  perfectly  and  nearly,  and  it  was 
to  him  a  mantle  of  conformity,  and  he  prayed  like  his 
Lord  for  those  who  wrought  his  own  death.  The  mantle 
of  Elijah  passed  long  since  from  the  earth.  But  the 
mantle  of  Jesus  yet  floats  over  each  praying  discigle. 
"Win  it  and  wear  it.  For  his  sake  and  for  the  honor 
and  love  of  his  Spirit,  be  meelc  and  lowly,  and  patient, 
much-enduring  and  long-forbearing,  not  easily  pro- 
voked, and  avenging  not  yourselves. 

Are  you  zealous  for  Christ's  house  ?  Let  your  zeal 
be  tempered  with  patience.  Else  like  Uzzah,  you  may 
profane  the  ark  you  would  steady  by  too  rash  a  hand. 
Some,  in  their  impatient  and  frenzied  zeal,  would  seem 
to  count  it  a  sacred  duty,  not  only  to  jostle  but  to 
overturn  that  coffer  of  the  divine  testimony,  and  to 


158  RELIGIOUS     PROGRESS, 

drive  and  goad  even  to  madness,  the  oxen  that  draw 
the  sacred  vehicle. 

If  the  law  of  forgiveness  of  injuries  be  inwrought  by 
Christ's  command  into  every  Christian  prayer,  im- 
plicitly or  expressly,  as  a  necessary  condition  to  its 
success ; — if  patience  be  thus  scriptural  and  blessed, 
having  the  sanction  of  Divine  precept  and  Divine 
example  ; — what  shall  be  said  of  the  law  of  honor, 
though  prevalent  in  lands  nominally  Christian  ?  Do 
not  its  votaries,  though  calling  themselves  men  of 
honor,  herein  "  glory  in  their  shame"  ?  In  the  duel, 
that  baptism  of  blood,  an  incensed  Honor  professes  to 
lave  away  its  stains,  petty  or  grave,  in  the  gore  of  a 
brother.  But  shall  God  hold  guiltless  those,  who  by 
resorting  to  this  rude  and  bloody  vengeance  virtually 
condemn  as  insufficient  and  unsatisfactory  the  law  of 
the  land  as  not  reaching  or  remedying  their  case,  and 
the  law  of  G-od,  as  not  entitled  to  stay  their  murderous 
hand  ?  What  shall  be  thought  of  the  prospects  at  the 
Judgment  day,  of  the  man  who  virtually  says;  My 
reputation  is  worth  more  than  the  life  of  my  neighbor  ? 
God  guards  that  life  with  His  dread  sanctions.  Society 
and  human  law  hedge  it  round  with  all  securities. 
But  from  me  and  my  just  rage,  and  the  avenging  of 
my  quarrel,  nor  God  nor  man  shall  shield  that  forfeited 
life — the  object  of  my  just  reprisals.  Has  that  man  a 
safe  conscience,  who  goes  into  the  field  intending  to  be 
a  suicide  or  a  murderer,  and  perhaps  to  unite  both 
crimes  in  the  one  rencontre?  Is  he  the  friend  of 
Order  and  Freedom  and  Virtue  who  puts  his  endorse- 
ment upon  the  reputation  and  practice  of  professed 


PATIENCE. 


159 


duellists — men  who,  from  steadiness  of  nerve  and  re- 
morseless assiduity  in  practice,  have  become  dexterous 
in  the  massacre  of  their  fellow,  and  in  consequence 
are  comparatively  unpunished  in  their  profligacy  and 
fraud  and  falsehood?  Every  duellist,  however  pro- 
voked, and  though  but  for  a  single  hrar  entering  the 
field,  or  even  but  sending  a  challenge  to  invite  mortal 
combat  and  which  in  fact  ends  without  blood-shedding, 
yet  aids  to  sustain  this  guilty  class  of  professed  assas- 
sins, and  to  hold  back  from  their  Cain-like  heads  the 
storm  of  general  contempt  and  indignation,  that  would 
else  pierce  even  their  shamelessness  and  compel  their 
exile  into  some  land  of  Nod,  like  the  refuge  of  the  first 
murderer,  where  their  presence  would  be  less  a  nui- 
sanc<^/  and  a  curse  to  society.  Above  all,  may  any  man 
trifle  with  the  lives  and  earthly  prospects,  and  perhaps 
the  spiritual  destinies,  of  the  widow  and  orphans 
whom  his  rash,  brief  rage  is  to  sentence  to  years  of 
bereavement,  and  want  and  temptation  ?  How  will 
he  encounter  the  eye  of  that  Judge  who  hath  declared 
that  no  murderer  hath  eternal  life  ?  The  sinner  who 
denies  thus  forbearance  to  his  fellow,  may  expect 
from  a  just  God  that  judgment  without  mercy  of 
which  his  own  conduct  is  an  example. 

To  the  laborer  and  the  sufferer,  to  the  student  of 
prophecy  and  the  perplexed  investigator  of  G-od's 
mysterious  dispensations  in  Providence  ;  to  the  Chris- 
tian offering  prayer  the  answer  of  which  seems  long 
delayed ;  to  the  youth  aiming  at  high  usefulness,  and 
the  saint  groaning  after  higher  holiness  ;  the  precept 
is  alike  applicable  and  important;  "In  your  patience 
possess  ye  your  souls." 


LECTURE  YIL 

GODLINESS. 


«  AND  TO   PATIENCE,   GODLINESS." 

2  Peter,  i.  6. 


It  was  a  beautiful  saying  of  one  of  the  old  Fathers, 
when,  addressing  himself  to  God,  he  exclaims  :  "  Thou 
hast  formed  man,  thy  creature,  for  Thee,  and  he  can- 
not be  at  rest  until  he  have  come  again  unto  Thee." 
True  piety,  by  which  we  mean  conformity  to  God,  and 
communion  with  God,  is  indispensable  to  man's  hap- 
piness, and  it  is,  too,  as  inseparably  necessary  to  man's 
highest  virtue. 

We  see  those  who  mistake  here,  and  overlook  this 
great  essential  principle  of  virtue.  They  imagine, 
that  a  trampling  down  of  low  and  sensual  appetites, 
and  a  checking  of  fierce  and  vengeful  passions : — a 
self-control,  that  shall  give  the  man  dominion  over  the 
violent  and  malevolent  aifections  of  his  nature,  on  the 
one  side,  and  over  the  luxurious  and  self-indulgent  ap- 
petencies of  his  nature  on  the  other  side  ; — a  temper- 
ance and  a  patience,  that  render  him  amiable,  tolerant 
to  others,  and  himself  not  intolerable,  in  human  soci- 
ety, must,  in  their  union,  constitute  him  a  finished 
paragon  of  moral  excellence.     If  a  man  have,  then, 


GODLINESS.  161 

attained  these,  or,  in  other  words,  have  achieved  the 
temperance  and  the  patience,  which  precede  the  grace 
enjoined  in  our  text,  these  moraUsts  imagine  their  dis- 
ciple to  stand,  thus  temperate,  and  thus  patient, — 
self-controlled,  and  self-possessed,  on  the  pinnacle  of 
human  perfection,  where  further  advance  in  goodness 
is  well  nigh  impossible.  But,  as  Augustine  exclaims, 
man,  formed  for  his  Maker,  needs  the  favor,  and  the 
society,  and  the  moral  image  of  that  Maker,,  to  be 
truly  blest  or  truly  good.  He  must  add  '■'■godliness ;''^ 
or  else  the  first  want  of  his  being  is  left  ungratified, 
and  the  first  law  of  his  creation  is  rudely  violated. 
.Framed  at  first  in  the  likeness,  spiritually,  of  his  God, 
he  has,  by  the  fall,  lost  it,  yet  like  a  crystal  vase 
shattered  into  fragments  that  retain  no  more  the  sym- 
metry of  its  original  form,  and  of  which  the  pristine 
lustre  is  obscured  and  bemired  by  the  slough  into 
which  it  has  dashed  ;  but  of  which  the  splinters  may 
yet  glitter,  and  the  very  shreds  yet  witness  of  a  har- 
mony and  proportion  now  destroyed : — so,  there  are  in 
man's  wishes  and  aspirations,  in  his  dim  hopes,  and  in 
his  haunting  fears,  traces  of  what  he  was,  and  omens 
of  what  he  needs  yet  again  to  become.  To  use  the 
language  of  Leighton  :  "  The  mind  of  man  retains  a 
sort  of  shadow,— confused  notions,  as  it  were,  of  the 
good  which  it  has  lost,  seeds  of  its  kindred  skjj.''^* 
The  temple,  in  its  ruins,  bears  yet  traces  of  the  divine 
Architect,  and  of  the  plan  on  which  that  Architect 
wrought.  A  class  of  ancient  philosophers,  some  of 
whose  disciples  Paul  met  at  Athens,  the  Stoics,  taught 
*  Praelect.  ii.  p.  9,  ed.  Scholefield.  Quoted  in  Knox's  Remjuns,  i.  p.  325, 


162  RELIGIOUS     PROGRESS. 

men  to  aim  at  moral  perfection,  in  the  entire  subjuga- 
tion of  the  passions.  This  would  not  be  possible, 
were  it  desirable  ; — for,  our  Creator  implanted  them, 
and  thoy  are  ineradicable.  It  would  not  be  desirable, 
were  it  possible ;  for,  that  Creator,  good  and  wise,  im- 
planted them  for  ends,  like  Himself,  both  wise  and  good. 
It  would  be  as  safe,  that  we  should  attempt  to  dispense 
with  the  bodily  organization, — and  to  see  without  the 
eye,  or  to  hear  without  the  ear.  God  sees  and  hears 
without  such  organs  as  ours.  But  man  must  see  and  hear 
by  them,  fi'om  the  law  which  his  Framer  imposed  upon 
him  at  his  first  creation.  A  stoical  indifference  would 
ill  qualify  man  for  the  place  which  his  Grod  assigned., 
him,  as  lord  of  the  meaner  orders  of  being.  Desti- 
tute of  all  passions  and  likings,  he  would  be  a  mere 
King  Log,  odious,  and  useless,  and  contemptible.  Or, 
the  endeavor  to  extirpate  passion  might,  as  in  the 
case  of  some  of  the  Stoics  it  did,  teach  man  a  posi- 
tive ungodliness.  Some  of  these  men,  in  their  fancied 
superiority  to  all  change  and  woe,  believed  themselves 
to  be  equal  or  superior  to  their  gods.  Some  of  the  ascetic 
and  mystic  writers,  in  later  and  christian  ages,  have 
fallen  insensibly  into  a  similar  error.  They  would, — 
instead  of  teaching  man,  by  the  wise  and  godly  con- 
trol of  the  senses,  to  secure  knowledge,  and  goodness, 
and  happiness,  and  usefulness, — teach  him  to  cancel 
and  extirpate  those  senses.  As  if  these  steeds,  which 
God  himself  has  provided  and  yoked  to  the  human 
soul,  as  its  motive  power,  in  its  present  state  of  exist- 
ence, ought  to  houghed,  rather  than  harnessed.  It 
is    Boodhist,  rather   than    Christian   theology,   which 


GODLINESS.  163 

teaches  men  to  look  for  excellence,  in  this  moral 
NiGCAN,  this  state  of  dozing  and  misty  apathy.  It 
would  leave  the  aspirant  after  goodness,  but  to  be  like 
Gallio, — when  Christ's  apostles  were  before  him,  and 
their  life  at  stake, — in  stately  indiflference,  "  caring  for 
none  of  these  fhing-s.^^  Or,  it  would  render  its  disci- 
ples, like  Nabal,  stunned  into  senselessness,  "  when 
his  heart  died  within  him,  and  he  became  as  a  stone." 
True  virtue  is  not  insensible  ;  and  true  patience  is 
not  apathetic ;  but,  on  the  contrary,  full  of.  all  feeling, 
though  this,  feeling  may  be  as  quiet  as  it  is  strong. 
And  true  godliness  teaches  not  the  renunciation,  but 
the  consecration  of  our  aflfections  to  Grod's  service  and 
glory,  like  an  Isaac,  dedicated  indeed  on  the  altar,  but 
not  slaughtered  there. 

I.  What,  then,  is  the  godliness  here  commended  ? 
Looking,  then,  to  the  sense  of  the  term  here  employed 
in  the  Greek  original,  it  is  piety  or  the  fear  of  God, — 
that  veneration  of  the  Most  High,  which  leads  to 
homage  and  obedience.  Or,  if  we  look  to  the  ele- 
ments of  the  English  word,  which  our  translators  have 
here  employed,  and  most  happily,  to  render  it,  it  is 
godlikeness :  a  resemblance  to,  and  sympathy  with 
Him,  the  Greatest,  Purest,  and  Best  of  Beings.  As 
we  have  before  seen,  the  apostasy  of  Eden  has  shat- 
tered, and  defaced,  and  obscured  this  likeness  and 
portraiture  of  ^haddai  within  the  soul.  It  must  be 
restored  :  the  end  of  Religion  is  such  restoration.  As 
the  moral  quality  in  His  own  nature,  on  which  God, 
in  His  appeals  to  us,  ever  lays  the  chiefest  stress,  is 
His  Infinite  Purity  and  Goodness,  and  he  delights  to 


164  RELIGIOUS     PROGRESS. 

proclaim,  as  his  title,  that  He  is  "  The  Holy  One  of 
Israel,"  our  chiefest  aim  should  be  a  renewal  unto 
holiness.  It  is  one  of  the  affecting  proofs  of  our 
estrangement  from  Him,  and  from  all  right  views  of 
Him,  that  when,  even  in  christian  lands,  we  speak 
admiringly  of  a  fellow-man  as  the  Godlike,  we  mean 
to  ascribe  to  that  fellow-mortal,  rather  majesty  of 
carriage  or  splendor  and  power  of  intellect,  than  purity 
or  goodness  of  soul.  "While  the  term  saint, — the  word 
which,  borrowed  from  the  Roman  tongue,  our  version 
of  the  New  Testament  employs  to  describe  the  men, 
who  as  Christians  are  partakers,  in  some  measure,  of 
evangelical  holiness, — has  been  used  in  christian 
Britain  and  in  our  own  country,  by  many  who  profess 
to  believe  this  gospel,  only  to  express  intensest  con- 
tempt for  those  to  whom  they  apply  it  ;  as  if  the  en- 
deavor to  become  holy  Christians,  were  itself  proof  of 
sanctimonious  hypocrisy,  and  as  though  all  godliness 
must  be,  and  is,  on  the  part  of  man,  but  hollow  pre- 
tence,— a  mask,  the  very  use  of  which  betokens  de- 
ceit and  guilt.  Yet,  the  Grod  of  the  Scriptures  reveals 
Himself  almost  on  every  page,  not  as  claiming  merely 
loyalty  and  distant  reverence  from  His  people,  but  as 
inviting  them  to  near  and  free  access,  and  installing 
them  into  the  place  of  children,  and  clothing  them 
with  a  distant  resemblance  to  Himself  by  virtue  of 
their  new  and  filial  communion  with  Him. 

Let  men,  if  they  choose,  deem  it  impossible,  or 
deride  it  as  fanatical  ; — yet,  as  surely  as  the  Bible  is 
truth,  so  certain  is  it  that  God  enjoins  it  on  man  to 
become  again  the  godly,  and  that  without  this  holi- 


GODLINESS.  165 

nes3  no  man  shall  see  the  Lord,  in  the  heavenly  world. 
The  godliness  of  our  text  is,  then,  communion  with 
God  and  conformity  to  Him ;  and  that  conformity  is 
two-fold,   and  implies  not  only  the  imitation  of  His 
character,  but  the  acceptance  of  His  testimonies  ;  not 
only  zeal  for  holiness,  but  zeal  for  truth.     If  I  come  to 
my  kingly  Father  in  Heaven,  I  credit, His  histories 
and  accept  His  statutes ;  as  well  as  copy  His  imitable 
attributes,  and  gratefully  receive  His  proffered  pardon 
and  fellowship.     Faith,  indeed,  as  grasping  the  truths 
of  God,  is  in  Scripture  made  the  root  of  the  moral 
graces  received  from  God ;  and  the  holiness  or  godli- 
ness of  Scripture  must  therefore  proceed  from  faith, 
or  assent  to  God's  true  statements  and  edicts.     On 
this  side,  it  will  be  seen,  that  godliness  necessarily  is 
allied  to  and  inclusive  of  evangelical  faith.     Godliness, 
then,  has  its  three  sides.     It  is  communion  with  God, 
or  the  society  of  our  Maker  is  enjoyed  in  true  worship 
of  Him.     It  is  intellectual  and  spiritual  assimilation 
to  Him,   in  the  cordial   admission    and    love  of  His 
.  truth ;  and  practical  assimilation  to  Him,  in  the  en- 
deavor to  reflect  on  the  world,  dimly  and  narrowly  in- 
deed, but  as  we  may,  the  lustre  of  His   graces  and 
some  broken,  distant  beams,  at  least,  of  his  moral  ex- 
cellencies. 

To  make  this  possible — to  raise  the  fallen,  and  re- 
build the  down-trodden  and  polluted  shrine,  God  him- 
self has  come  amongst  us.  He  has,  in  the  person  of 
His  Son,  assumed  human  nature,  and  not  only  borne 
our  sin,  but  shown  us  a  perfect  pattern  of  our  own 
nature,  as  that  nature  was  in  Him  uplifted  and  sane- 


Ififi  RELIGIOUS     PROGRESS. 

tified,  and  made  perfect  in  excellence.  Through  Christ 
as  tlic  Advocate,  He  invites  the  communion  of  prayer, 
alike  from  the  solitary  worshipper  in  the  closet  and 
on  the  mountain  side,  and  on  the  death-bed  ;  and 
from  the  assembled  family  at  the  social  altar  ;  and  from 
the  christian  congregation  gathered  on  His  Sabbaths 
into  His  sanctuaries.  Through  the  Son  He  gives  to 
us  the  blessed  and  renewing  influences  of  the  Spirit, 
changing  the  unregenerate  into  a  new  and  holier  na- 
ture ;  and  restoring  the  regenerate  from  their  daily 
lapses,  and  preserving  the  life  and  growth  of  their  chris- 
tian graces  amid  all  the  influences  from  without,  which 
tend  to  tarnish,  and  corrupt,  and  extinguish  that  holi- 
ness. And  as  godliness  is,  as  we  have  already  seen, 
three-fold ;  Christ,  in  the  influence  of  His  Spirit,  re- 
veals Himself  in  His  three-fold  office,  as  the  Way, 
through  whom  we  have  the  required  communion, — 
the  Truth,  in  whom  we  obtain  the  requisite  teach- 
ings,— and  the  Life,  in  whom  is  given  us  the  new 
and  better  existence  that  quickens  our  moral  death, 
and  makes  us  alive  unto  God,  and  conformed  to  Him. 
Hence,  when  the  apostle  John,  who  had  leaned  on 
Christ's  bosom,  describes  the  divine  life  of  godliness, 
he  sums  it  up  in  the  knowledge  of  Christ.  "  We  are 
in  Him  that  is  true,  even  in  His  Son  Jesus  Christ. 
This  is  THE  True  Gtod  and  eternal  life."* 

Such  is  godliness — communion  with  our  G-od,  con- 
formity in  Practical  Obedience,  and  conformity  in 
Spiritual  Character  and  Intellectual  Belief  to  God ; 
and  all  these  freely  and  only  attainable  in  the  knowl- 

*  1  John,  V.  20. 


GODLINESS.  167 

edge  of  one  Christ, — the  one  Bringcr  and  exhaustless 
Fountain  of  all  grace.  But  when,  at  the  close  of  his 
ftrst  epistle,  the  beloved  disciple  thus  grouped  all  the 
constituent  principles  of  godliness  around  the  knowl- 
edge of  Jesus,  we  see  that  he  followed  it  by  the 
significant  words,  which  afterwards  succeed,  and  which 
close  the  epistle:  '■'■Little  children,  keep  yourselves 
from  idols.'''' 

II.  There  are  foul  semblances  of  godliness,  mere 
idols,  that  delude  many.  Let  us  keep  ourselves  from 
them.  True  godliness  is  not  what  some  regard  it. 
It  is  not  fantastic  and  unscriptural  revery,  for  it  grasps 
and  conforms  to  God's  revealed  truth :  and  one  and 
the  same  Spirit,  working  in  the  renewed  heart,  coalesces 
with  its  own  utterances,  preserved  on  the  inspired 
pages.  It  is  not  mere  outward  ceremonies,  and  cum- 
brous rituals.  It  is  a  life  of  assimilation  to  G-od.  It 
is  not  mere  remote  and  terrified  homage,  as  of  a 
bondsman,  crouched  at  a  great  distance  from  the 
dread  and  tremendous  throne.  It  is  communion,  by 
"  a  new  and  living  way,"  that  enters  the  most  holy 
place,  rends  the  veil  of  parting,  and  lifts  us  from  the 
prison-house  into  the  family  and  arms  of  G-od  as  of  a 
reconciled  and  adopting  Father. 

1.  It  is  a  mistake,  then,  to  suppose,  that  mere 
veneration  for  some  higher  existence,  however  imagi- 
nary and  false  our  views  of  this  existence, — that  such 
vague  veneration  is  godliness  ;  that  God  hears,  alike 
with  delight,  those  who  call  him  Jehovah  and  receive 
the  Bible,  and  those  who  call  him  Juggernaut  and 
who  swear  by  the   Hindoo  Shaster.     Baal's  priests, 


168  RELIGIOUS     PROGRESS. 

lacerated  and  slain  by  the  Lord's  Elijah,  were  godly,  if 
such  veneration  for  a  higher  object  were  enough  to 
constitute  godliness  ;  and  the  mothers  who  flung  of  old 
their  babes  into  the  fiery  arms  of  Moloch,  or  who  beside 
the  streams  of  India  or  the  sea-shore  of  Western  Africa 
have  cast,  on  this  blessed  Sabbath,  their  children  to 
the  crocodile  or  the  shark,  were  godly  ;  if  mere  awe 
before  an  imaginary  Grod  of  their  own  devising  be 
enough  to  constitute  it.  Then,  the  votary  of  Tibet, 
whirling  his  written  prayers  around  on  a  wheel,  whose 
every  revolution  counts  in  his  view  for  a  renewal  of 
the  petition,  is  a  devout  man  and  accepted  of  God. 
According  to  this  theory,  the  daughter  of  Pharaoh  who 
became  the  queen  of  Solomon,  was  alike,  a  true,  and 
accepted  worshipper,  when  adoring  the  garlic  or  the 
viper  in  her  native  Egypt,  as  when  afterwards  she  had 
been  taught  to  bow  on  Jehovah's  own  chosen  mount, 
within  his  own  shrine. 

In  this  vague  and  unscriptural  sense  of  the  term, 
the  Atheistic  poet,  Shelley,  and  the  Pantheistic  philoso- 
pher, Spinoza,  have  been  called  men  of  piety,  because 
of  a  spirit  of  tenderness  and  awe  that  was  attributed 
to  them.  But  Atheism, — the  ungrateful  and  irrational 
dethronement  and  denial  of  any  God, — is  that,  to  be 
by  any  apothecary's  art  of  liberalism  made  to  coalesce 
with  the  love  and  worship  of  the  true  God,  as  forming 
the  same  incense  of  accepted  adoration  ?  As  to  Pan- 
theism, it  is  opposed  to  piety  or  true  godliness,  radically 
and  throughout.  True  godliness  begins  in  humility 
and  penitence,  and  is  sustained  by  prayer  and  adora- 
tion.    But  Pantheism  begins  in  Pride.     It  makes  us 


GODLINESS. 


169 


ourselves,  part  and  parcel  of  God.  It  abjures  prayer, 
for  there  is  no  being  to  need,  and  none  to  hear,  it.  It 
cannot  worship,  for  all  is  alike  worthy  of  receiving 
worship,  from  the  ashes  on  which  Job  sate  to  the  God 
whom  his  wife  bade  him  curse.  It  is  the  most 
impious  and  ungodly  of  all  systems,  for  it  makes  God 
the  author  and  doer  of  all  sin,  and  thus  annihilates  the 
eternal  distinctions  of  Right  and  Wrong.  Confounding 
the  Omnipresence  and  Agency  of  God  together,  it 
makes  creatures,  unorganized  and  organized,  brute  and 
human,  angelic  and  fiendish,  all  but  efflorescences  and 
parts  of  the  Almighty ;  and  all  action  whatever,  from 
Abel's  offering  of  sacrifice  to  Cain's  lifting  the  fratrici- 
dal arm,  were  alike  God  moving  himself,  and  honoring 
or  murdering  Himself.  The  damsel  with  the  spirit  of 
divination,  and  the  apostle  who  ejected  the  demon  within 
her,  were,  on  this  scheme,  alike  inspired.  It  annihilates 
Conscience,  and  Responsibility,  and  Individuality,  Re- 
pentance, and  Temperance,  and  Patience,  and  flings 
around  man  the  sinner,  when  most  sinning,  the  immuni- 
ties and  honors  and  rights  of  Divinity.  It  is  an  awful 
proof  of  the  deep  and  damning  hatred  of  the  unrenewed 
heart  to  Truth  and  God,  that  in  christian  Europe  and 
America  after  the  blaze  for  nineteen  centuries  which  has 
illuminated  them  from  the  heights  of  Calvary,  the  doc- 
trine that  Braminism,  with  its  priestly  despotism,  its 
foul  impurity,  and  its  most  degrading  idolatry,  has 
been  teaching  for  more  than  twenty  centuries  in  India, 
should  be  transporting  itself  into  the  lands  long  blesseii 
with  the  light  of  the  Cross,  there  to  be  hailed  as  a 
higher  philosophy  and  a  deeper   piety.     It  is  as   it 

8 


170  RELIGIOUS    PROGRESS. 

Satan,  desperate  and  maddened  with  the  wounds  of 
missionary  zeal  on  his  ancient  empire  in  the  East, 
were  determined  to  revive  in  the  universities  of  Europe 
and  America  what  had  become  too  offensive  and 
ridiculous  to  find  longer  universal  credence  among  the 
besotted  Hindoos,  or  the  dozing  Sufis  of  Persia.  And 
upon  the  young  in  their  indiscriminate  admiration  of 
writers,  British  or  American,  who  have  caught  from 
Grerman  philosophy  more  or  less  of  this  foul  taint, 
it  may  have  a  fatal  influence.  To  credit  it,  in  the  face 
of  its  moral  fruits  as  India  shows  them,  and  in  com- 
parison with  the  gospel  and  Saviour  whom  it  would 
banish  from  amongst  us,  is  as  if  the  Hebrews  had 
turned  from  the  mightier  miracles  and  the  heavenly 
attestations  of  Moses  their  emancipator,  to  the  juggleries 
of  their  old  taskmasters,  Jannes  and  Jambres,  the 
magicians  of  the  land  where  their  fathers  had  long 
witnessed  only  oppression  and  woe, — the  land,  whose 
gods  the  God  of  their  fathers  had  humbled  and  foiled, 
amid  their  own  proudest  monuments,  and  in  their  own 
most  sacred  shrines. 

2.  It  is  a  mistake,  again,  to  look,  as  some  seem  now 
disposed  to  do,  upon  the  austerities  and  ceremonies  of  a 
superstitious  and  apostate  church,  the  Church  of  Rome, 
as  the  fairest  exhibition  of  godliness.  True  piety 
has  been  found  there  of  old,  and  may  yet  be  found  in 
many  of  the  adherents  of  that  anti-christian  commu- 
nion. But  the  artistic  piety  of  some, — who  would  make 
a  sentimental  admiration  of  the  ancient  and  imposing, 
in  music,  and  art,  and  architecture,  to  be  identical 
with  religious  feeling, — will   not   be   found  to  meet 


GODLINESS,  171 

long  the  exigencies  of  life,  and  the  arts  of  the  tempter  ; 
nor  does  it  at  all  consider  the  claims  of  the  Scriptures 
respecting  true  and  acceptable  devotion.  Traditions 
for  Grod's  truths  ; — external  ceremonies,  for  an  inward 
and  spiritual  experience  ; — penance  for  penitence  ; — 
human  merits,  instead  of  Christ  the  Lord  our  Righte- 
ousness ; — and  sacraments,  as  the  vehicle,  made  a  suf- 
ficient substitute  for,  or  infallible  warrant  of,  the  Di- 
vine Spirit ; — present  a  series  of  substitutions,  against 
which  the  word  of  God  has-  already  warned  us,  and 
most  significantly  protested. 

3.  Yet  another  school  to  be  found  in  that  church, 
but  with  tendencies  quite  opposite  to  those  of  the  class 
just  described,  are  the  Mystics.  They  are  not  met 
exclusively  in  the  Roman  communion.  There  have 
been  among  them  men  eminently  spiritual  and  of 
deep  piety.  But  the  system,  as  such,  is  dangerous 
and  unscriptural.  It  teaches  men  to  judge  falsely  both 
of  sin  and  of  grace.  Of  sin,  it  takes  false  and  inade- 
quate views,  representing  it  to  consist  too  much  in  the 
existence  and  action  of  the  passions,  as  if  the  extir- 
pation or  quiescence  of  these  were  true  virtue ;  and 
confounding  self-love  with  selfishness,  it  teaches  a  sort 
of  abnegation  which  Revelation  has  not  required,  and 
which  our  Creator  has  not^  made  possible.  Of  grace, 
it  teaches  us  to  expect  the  bestowal,  rather  in  quiet 
contemplation  than  in  the  active  study  and  meditation 
of  G-od's  truth,  and  in  energetic  obedience  to  God's 
commands.  And  its  chiefcst  sin  is,  that  it  often  ob- 
scures the  cross  of  Christ,  by  turning  the  eyes  of  the 
man  who  would  attain  godliness  to  his  own  spirit  and 


172  RELIGIOUS     PROGRESS. 

God's  Spirit,  first,  rather  than  to  the  Atonement,  and 
Righteousness,  and  Advocacy  of  Christ  as  the  price 
and  channel  of  the  Spirit's  influences.  In  the  writings  of 
Fenelon,  and  Madame  Guion,  excellent  as  the  saintly 
authors  were,  may,  we  think,  be  found  traces  of  these 
false  views  as  to  what  godliness  is,  and  as  to  the  mode 
in  which  it  is  to  be  obtained  and  cherished.  True  re- 
ligion is  spiritual,  and  true  worship  is  eminently,  as 
an  old  scholar  described  it,  "  the  flight  of  one  alone  to 
the  Only  One ;" — the  soul  in  its  loneliness  betaking 
itself,  apart  from  its  fellows,  to  God,  as  the  one  and 
the  sufficing  Refuge.  But  that  Refuge,  Christ  is, 
and  God  only  as  seen  in  Christ.  He  is  the  way  along 
which  that  flight  must  travel,  and  none  cometh  to  the 
Father  but  by  Him,  the  Son.  The  true  Spirit  wit- 
nesses of  Him.  In  some  offshoots  of  the  Quietist  and 
Mystic  school,  the  Holy  Spirit  has  also  lost  his  honors, 
as  well  as  the  Saviour,  being  confounded  with  the 
unaided  reason  of  man. 

III.  [n  what  mode,  then,  may  we  safely  and  suc- 
cessfully attain  the  godliness,  which  the  apostle  here 
enjoins  ?  Far,  then,  as  it  is  a  life,  God  must  give  it. 
Far  as  it  is  a  truth,  He  in  his  Scriptures,  and  by  the 
Spirit  of  His  Son,  must  teach ;  it  and  far  as  it  is  a 
communion,  it  must  be  sought  in  the  one  way,  Christ, 

"  —  the  king's  highway  of  holiness," 

as  the  good  Cennick,  the  coadjutor  first  of  "Whitfield, 
and  afterwards  the  convert  of  Moravianism,  in  his 
hymn  describes  it.  To  be  godly  we  must  be  with 
(■rod,   and  he  is  approached  through   Christ  and  by 


GODLINESS.  173 

prayer.  Daily,  and  earnest,  and  effectual  supplication 
is  necessary.  This  mast,  again,  seek  God's  teachings 
in  the  study  of  His  revealed  Truth.  Here  he  has  mani- 
fested Himself,  his  purposes,  and  character  ;  and  this, 
his  book,  he  delights  to  honor,  and  to  transcribe  afresh 
into  the  experience  and  hearts  of  his  devout  people. 
Hidden  in  the  heart,  it  becomes  guidance,  and  impulse, 
and  gladness,  along  our  intricate  and  varied  pathway. 
But  the  volume  teaches  us,  as  another  help  to  seek  the 
society  of  God's  people,  that  we  may  be  profited  by 
their  vigilance,  and  sympathy,  and  experience.  In  the 
sanctuary,  and  in  other  and  occasional  interviews,  the 
friendship  and  converse  of  these,  "  the  excellent  of  the 
earth,"  minister  to  the  truly  devout,  some  of  his  richest 
enjoyments.  Yet  even  their  society  and  counsel  can- 
not replace  the  visits  of  his  solitary  spirit  to  the  mercy- 
seat  of  His  Father  ;  nor  the  visits  of  the  Comforter, 
the  Holy  Spirit,  the  Messenger  of  the  Father  and  the 
Son,  to  his  waiting  soul.  Thus  maintaining  a  double 
communion  with  God  on  high,  and  with  the  people 
and  with  the  book  of  God  here  below,  the  disciple 
walks,  what  is  to  the  world,  a  hidden  path ;  and  the 
root  of  his  principles  is  continually  enriched  with  the 
river  that  maketh  glad  the  city  of  God.  The  fruits 
are  visible.  The  life  that'  produces  them  is  invisible 
and  divine,  hidden  with  Christ,  in  God. 

But,  in  addition  to  the  society  of  God's  saints,  yet 
remaining  and  warring  on  the  earth,  a  man,  in  their 
writings,  and  in  the  memorials  of  them  preserved  in 
religious  biography,  may  maintain  a  delightful  and 
edifying  association  with  those  who  have  gone  before 


174  RELIGIOUS    PROGRESS. 

him.  The  heart  of  David,  and  of  Paul,  yet  sends  a 
glow  and  pulse  to  his  heart,  in  these  remote  times, 
from  the  pages  that  preserve  their  experience.  He 
takes  counsel  with  Augustine  and  Bunyan,  as  they 
magnify  in  their  "  Confessions"  the  riches  of  Grod's  for- 
bearance toward  them,  and  as  they  tell  of  the  great 
waters  and  fearful  pits,  out  of  which  the  "  G-race 
Abounding"  of  their  Father  and  G-od  lifted  them. 
The  diary  of  Brainerd,  and  Martyn,  and  Pearce,  and 
Carey,  and  Payson,  and  Judson, — each,  is  profitable  to 
him,  and  out  of  their  scattered  urns,  they  being  dead, 
like  Abel,  yet  speak.  The  cloud  of  witnesses,  like  a 
belt  of  light,  girdling  and  kindling  all  the  heavens,  all 
points  in  one  direction.  Of  various  countries,  and 
ages,  and  communions,  they  were  one  in  Christ, — one 
in  their  distrust  of  self,  and  love  of  prayer,  and  study 
of  Scripture — one  in  spirit,  and  soon  to  be  gathered 
home,  one  in  abode  and  inheritance  forever.  It  is  de- 
lightful to  keep  up,  in  this  manner,  the  communion 
of  saints  with  the  departed,  and  to  catch  in  it  a  pledge 
and  image  of  that  communion,  as  it  shall  be  extended, 
purified,  and  made  perpetual,  in  the  world  of  light. 
And  it  is  as  profitable,  when  used  in  subserviency  to 
the  study  of  Scripture,  and  with  prayer  for  the  Spirit 
— it  is  as  profitable  as  it  is  delightful.  The  companion 
of  the  wise  becomes,  himself,  wise.  We  catch  the 
sweet  contagion  of  their  piety.  True  godlin3SS,  then, 
it  will  be  seen,  requires,  at  least,  that  a  certain  por- 
tion of  our  time  be  spent  in  solitude.  Even  religious 
occupation  may  usurp  on  the  right  of  the  closet.  We 
may  forget,  in  the  care  of  the  vineyard  of  others,  the 


GODLINESS.  175 

due  tillage  of  our  own  fields.  But,  to  be  happy,  to  be 
long  or  widely  useful,  to  foil  the  tempter,  and  to  grow 
in  grace,  hours  must  be  given  to  solitary  meditation, 
and  to  individual  and  secret  prayer. 

IV.  And  now,  having  seen  what  godliness  is  ;  having 
dwelt  on  some  of  the  delusions  that  are  made  to  stand 
for  it ;  and  on  the  manner  of  its  attainment  and  cul- 
ture, in  its  reality  ;  is  it  needed,  that  we  further  urge 
ourselves,  earnestly  and  incessantly,  to  seek  it  ? 

Every  inducement  of  interest  and  duty,  of  honor 
and  safety,  of  benevolence  to  man  and  piety  towards 
Grod,  requires  each  of  us  to  become  the  friend  and 
child  and  follower  of  the  living  Grod. 

1.  Remember  that  it  is  the  hig-hest  style  of  human 
nature.  The  scholar,  the  sage,  the  discoverer,  and  the 
hero,  what  are  they,  before  God,  to  the  saint  ?  He  is 
the  hero  of  the  world's  noblest  conflict,  and  the  dis- 
coverer and  colonist  of  the  better  country  than  all 
those  lands  which  Earth  washes  with  all  her  seas,  or 
girdles  beneath  her  brightest  skies.  Already  the  charge 
of  angels,  he  is,  one  day,  to  be  for  evermore  their  com- 
panion and  fellow-heir.  Look  in  on  Bunyan  in  the 
dungeon.  It  is,  perhaps,  an  hour  of  solitude  and  sad- 
ness. He  sees,  through  the  grating,  the  quivering  leaf, 
and  the  green  hedge.  They  are  free  to  breathe  the 
unfettered  air,  and  to  bask  beneath  the  open  sky.  He 
is  shut  up.  He  sees  the  herds  roaming  at  their  will 
unconfined,  and  hears  the  call  of  the  bird  as  it  soars 
and  sings,  and  sees  perhaps  some  godless  sportsman 
whom  he  knows,  amongst  his  scorners  and  persecutors 
merry  and  unquestioned,  on  his  way  afield.     Equipage? 


176  RELIGIOUS     PROGRESS. 

roll  past.  Rank  and  Beauty  and  "Wealth  and  Learn- 
ing adorn  their  tenants.  Does  he  envy  the  quivering 
leaf,  and  the  air-swept  hedge,  and  the  uncaged  lark, 
or  begrudge  the  hunter  his  sports,  or  the  rich,  and  gay, 
and  wise,  their  enjoyment  of  life  ?  They  have  the 
goods  of  earth.  Some  have  vegetable  life,  and  the 
others  animal  life,  and  the  others  intellectual  life,  but 
he  has  spiritual  life.  In  his  dungeon  he  is  the  Lord's 
freeman-.  In  his  oppression,  and  penury,  and  lowly 
ignorance,  he  is  visited,  and  taught,  and  comforted  of 
God.  And  in  that  lonely  prisoner,  tagging  his  laces, 
or  thumbing  the  martyr's  sad,  glad  story,  or  bowed 
over  his  Bible,  you  have  seen  the  happiest,  greatest, 
wisest,  and  safest  man  of  them  all.  What  made  him 
such  ?     His  holiness. 

2.  Holiness  is,  again,  the  master-key  of  the  universe. 
Born  to  die,  you  are  fated  to  travel  hence.  You  are 
but  a  sojourner  here,  as  all  your  fathers,  before  you, 
were.  Earth  is  not  your  home.  The  summons  of 
death  comes,  and  you  must  go  forth.  But  whither  ? 
Become  G-od's  charge  and  child.  Be  a  renewed  man 
by  Grod's  grace;  and  you  are^ gifted,  virtually,  with 
the  freedom  of  the  Universe.  In  traversing  our  lit- 
tle narrow  earth,  there  is  much  gained  for  the  con- 
venience and  ease  of  the  pilgrim,  when  he  has  a 
circulating  letter  of  credit  that  will  secure  him  funds 
at  any  great  town  which  he  visits ;  and  when,  by  his 
knowledge  of  the  language,  he  can  converse  with  the 
natives  of  all  the  lands  that  he  may  enter.  He  has 
thus  a  sort  of  universal  pass-key,  alike  to  resources 
and  to  intercourse.     He  is  everywhere  at  home.     But 


GODLINESS.  177 

did  you  ever  reflect,  that,  whilst  the  knowledge  of  the 
schools  may  be  comparatively  useless  after  death,  and 
the  lore  of  this  world  become  but  an  unavailable 
burden  to  the  disemljodied  spirit, — the  knowledge,  and 
love,  and  likeness  of  your  God  furnish  a  portable 
wealth,  which  Death  only  makes  more  valuable?  Did 
you  never  remember  that  sympathy  with  Jehovah  is 
the  language  of  the  spirit — a  celestial  dialect,  intelligi- 
ble to  all  holy  intelligences  in  all  worlds  ?  Go  where 
you  may, — be  your  journey  far  into  the  azure  depths 
of  space,  till  our  poor  planet  becomes  but  a  dim 
spangle  on  the  outermost  hem  of  the  robe  of  Night,  you 
are,  if  truly  godly,  nowhere  a  stranger,  for  everywhere 
your  Father's  sceptre  is  over  you,  and  your  Father's 
grateful  and  loving  subjects  encounter  you.  Schemers 
have  toiled  to  invent  a  universal  character,  that  all 
people  of  the  earth  might  use  in  common.  Let  there 
be  graved  on  your  soul,  regenerate  and  sanctified,  the 
characters  of  true  holiness,  and  of  Divine  sonship ; — 
and  they  are  recognized  by  all  the  hierarchies  of 
heaven ;  and  angels  and  principalities  and  powers 
welcome  and  cherish,  in  you,  a  fellow-heir  and  a 
younger  brother  of  their  Sovereign  and  your  Redeemer. 
Soon  the  hand  of  the  Destroyer  will  have  torn  you 
from  earthly  home,  and  kindred,  and  friends.  But  if 
you  are  the  godly,  it  is  the  exchange  of  a  perishable, 
for  an  imperishable  abode ;  of  a  family^  small,  and 
erring,  and  mortal,  and  soon  to  be  scattered,  for  the 
general  assembly  and  church  of  the  First-born,  a  count- 
less host,  and  all  immortal,  and  impeccable,  and  indi- 
visible.    In  that  great  gathering,  think  you  the  swarth 

8* 


178  RELIGIOUS     PROGRESS. 

Karen,  whom  Christ's  gospel  found  in  the  jungle,  will 
be  at  any  loss,  because  of  the  difference  of  their  earthly 
dialects,  to  greet  and  hold  fraternal  intercourse  with 
the  American  back-woodsman,  who  knowing  but  our 
language,  and  that  but  uncouthly,  sent  by  the  mis- 
sionary his  sympathies  and  alms  to  this  the  missionary 
convert  ?  Think  you,  the  Sandwich  Islander,  renewed, 
sanctified  and  glorified,  will  be  at  a  loss  to  address  him 
who  was,  once,  his  unknown  patron  and  brother  on 
these  western  shores  ?  No.  Their  prayers,  long  since 
though  it  was,  that  they  were  offered, — this,  in  Karen, 
and  this,  in  Hawaiian,  and  that,  in  English, — blended 
in  the  ear  of  their  common  Lord,  and  returned  to  earth 
in  mutual  and  intermingling  blessings.  Shall  not, 
think  you,  their  love  and  likeness  to  that  same  Lord, — 
a  Lord  now  near,  and  now  visible, — make  them  capa- 
ble of  full  sympathy  and  of  freest  intercourse  ? 

3.  Remember,  again,  that  it  is  the  one  thing  need- 
ful. Send  bread  to  the  famishing, — give  sympathy 
to  the  oppressed,  struggling  towards  the  dawn  of  free- 
dom, as  its  first  faint  gleam  enters  their  prison-bars, — 
give  healing  remedies  to  those  who  are  sick,  and  ready 
to  die, — give  education  to  the  ignorant. — But,  before 
the  school,  or  political  emancipation,  or  health,  or  even 
bread,  the  tribes. of  Adam  need  true  godliness.  They 
need  the  termination  of  that  estrangement  from  their 
Maker,  in  which  began  their  misery  and  their  sin. 
They  need  the  restoration  of  that  holy  image,  lost  in 
the  Fall,  and  recoverable  only  in  the  Redemption  and 
the  Regeneration.  It  is  your  duty  to  aid  in  its  dis- 
semination, by  being  more  godly,  if  you  are  already 


GODLINESS. 


179 


converted  ;  and,  by  becoming  the  servant  and  child  of 
Jehovah,  if  you  have  remained  till  this  hour  ungodly. 
If  you  neglect  this  duty  much  longer,  the  one  season 
of  x)pportunity  may  close  forever,  as  suddenly,  as  irre- 
vocably. If  you  continue  till  death  thus  neglectful, 
your  children,  however  tenderly  nurtured  and  richly 
dowered, — your  neighbors,  however  kindly  treated, 
and  however  much  admiring  you, — your  friends,  the 
most  intimate,  and  the  most  attached, — dying  impeni- 
tent, and  confirmed  in  their  irreligion  by  your  baleful 
example,  will  accuse  your  sin  in  the  day  of  judgment ; 
and  God  will  not  hold  you  guiltless  of  their  perdition, 
as  well  as  your  own.  Sabbaths,  for  what  did  they 
shine  ?  The  Bible,  why  did  it  come  to  you  ?  Apos- 
tles and  prophets,  and  Christ  himself,  why  did  they 
come,  and  witness,  and  toil,  and  die  ?  That  you 
should  be  still,  stubbornly,  and  to  the  last,  an  ungodly 
man  ?  Perhaps,  for  you,  tears  and  prayers  have  been 
offered.  The  dead  have  interceded  for  you.  Remem- 
Jber,  if  death  and  the  judgment-day  finds  you  G-od's 
enemy,  eternal  separation  will  be  between  you  and 
these,  your  pious  friends  ;  and  the  godly  mother  herself, 
who  bare  you,  will  cling  to  her  Saviour,  and  abjure, 
then,  the  godless  son  who  scorned  that  Saviour,  too 
long,  and  to  the  last. 

4.  The  last  consideration  is,  that,  as  godliness  is  the 
bond  and  crown  of  all  the  virtues,  so  it  is,  on  the 
other  hand,  the  one  and  sufficient  remedy  for  the  sub- 
jugation and  removal  of  all  the  vices.  Other  reforms 
are  of  limited  application.  This  is  the  only  radical 
reform,  whose  effects  branch  out  over  all  G-od's  uni- 


ISO  RELIGIOUS     PROGRESS. 

verse.  Other  remedies  are  but  specific,  for  single 
maladies.  This  conversion  to  God, — the  grace  of  G-od 
in  the  gift  of  his  dear  Son, — is  a  catholicon  that  has 
healed,  and  can  again  heal,  to  the  world's  end,  de- 
pravity the  most  foul  and  obdurate.  "  The  bloor"  of 
Clirist  cleanseth  from  all  sin." 

Look  at  the  foul,  seething  caldron  of  Roman  society, 
in  Paul's  times.  Think  of  a  Tiberius  and  Caligula 
and  Nero,  on  the  throne  of  absolute  sovereignty,  giving 
tone  to  all  that  vast  empire.  See  what  inveterate 
profligacy,  and  loathsome  corruption,  made  the  eternal 
city,  as  a  very  witches'  caldron  of  all  detestable  and 
unnatural  things.  What  drug  of  your  moral  me- 
dicaments,— what  power  in  your  philosophy, — what 
strange  energy  of  your  civilization,  could  reach,  and 
cure,  and  renew  such  iniquity  ?  What  gods  they 
have  chosen;  and  how  have  they  become  like  the 
objects  of  their  idolatry  !  With  Mercury  the  thief; — 
Apollo,  the  god  of  music,  flaying  in  jealous  revenge  an 
unsuccessful  rival  in  art; — Jupiter  the  profligate,  and 
Saturn  the  cannibal ; — and  Yenus  the  harlot, — all  in 
their  shrines,  what  must  be — what  were,  the  worship- 
pers ?  But  Christ's  gospel  is  cast  into  that  simmering 
mass,  and  even,  out  of  that  horrible  abyss,  come  forth 
renewed,  and  pure,  and  upright,  and  true  men.  Grod 
is  in  the  gospel,  and  its  fruits  are  the  godliness  that  is 
profitable  to  the  life  that  now  is,  and  that  hath  promise 
also  of  the  life  to  come.  The  decree  and  provision  of 
God,  for  the  relief  of  earth's  wickedness  and  woe,  it 
must  go  forth  "  conquering  and  to  conquer,"  and  bear- 
ing down,  before  it,  all  opposition.     For  you,  the  only 


GODLINESS.  181 

question  is,  whether  you,  in  ungrateful  and  unavailing 
strife  against  it,  shall  be  crushed  beneath  its  victorious 
and  irresistible  wheels ;  or  whether,  for  your  own 
sake,  and  the  sake  of  your  race,  and  the  sake  of  your 
God,  you  consent  to  accept,  and  share  and  speed 
onward  its  fated  and  universal  triumph.  God  make 
yours  the  just  decision ;  and  grant  it  be  speedy,  as 
well  as  just. 


LECTURE  VIIL 

BROTHERLY   KINDNESS. 

"  AND  TO  GODLINESS,  BROTHERLY  KINDNESS." 

2  Peter,  i.  7. 

This  same  apostle  has,  in  his  earlier  epistle,*  en- 
joined it  upon  the  disciples  of  Christ  to  "  love  the 
brotherhood."  And  whom  has  the  Saviour  taught  us 
to  regard  as  being  thus  our  kindred  and  our  brethren, 
to  be  cherished  with  every  feeling  of  fraternal  tender- 
ness, and  to  receive  from  us  every  office  of  "  brotherly 
kindness  ?"  We  turn  to  the  gospels,  for  the  needful 
light  in  interpreting  the  epistles. 

When  our  Lord  was  celebrating  with  his  apostles 
the  dread,  and  yet  the  much-desired,  Passover,  the 
last  religious  ordinance  of  his  life  on  earth,  he  said  to 
them,  whilst  the  imminence  of  a  fearful  peril,  and  the 
nearness  of  his  own  departure,  would  make  every  sen- 
tence that  fell  from  his  lips,  weighty  and  memorable 
with  that  mourning  band :  "  JL  neiv  commandment  I 
give  unto  you.  That  ye  love  one  another :  as  I  have 
loved  you  that  ye  also  love  one  another.  By  this  shall 
all  men  know  that  ye  are  my  disciples,  if  ye  have  love 
one  to  another."!     Were  he  less  than  a  God,  would  it 

*  1  Peter,  ii.  17.  f  John,  xiii.  34,  35. 


BROTHERLY  KINDNESS.     .•       183 

be  fitting  for  him,  as  he  looked  off  into  the  eternity  ho 
was  so  soon  to  enter,  to  talk  of  giving  commandments, 
and  new  commandments  ?  We  answer,  it  was  the 
same  Legislator  that  had  spoken  amid  the  fiery  tem- 
pest, and  clad  in  all  the  terrors  of  the  Lord  on  Sinai, 
that  was  speaking  now,  as  he  was  soon  to  endare  on 
Calvary  the  terrors  he  had  but  dispensed  on  Sinai.  It 
was  a  new  commandment,  because  the  precept  was 
new  in  its  scope.  Glancing  over  the  barriers  of  tribe, 
and  land,  and  century,  it  embraced  the  believers  of  all 
races  and  countries  and  dispensations,  overriding  all 
the  distinctions  on  which  men  lay  such  stress,  of  rank, 
and  office,  and  wealth,  and  culture  and  hue,  and  lin- 
eage, and  sect.  Far  as  men  loved  Him,  they  were  to 
be  loved  by  all  that  were  His.  There  was  to  be 
neither  Jew  nor  Grentile,  Grreek  nor  Barbarian,  bond 
nor  free,  in  their  common  Redeemer  and  Sovereign. 

It  was  new  in  its  authorship.  The  Decalogue  on 
Sinai  had  been  given  indeed  by  this  same  legislator, 
but  it  was  mediately,  and  through  his  servant  Moses, 
Thrusting  aside  all  intervention,  He,  the  Son,  himself, 
seeing  whom  men  saw  the  Father  also,  was  now  come 
to  speak,  face  to  face,  and  a§  with  open  vision,  that 
law  of  Love,  which  crowned  and  solved  all  the  earlier 
commandments.  The  new  and  better  dispensation  he 
brought  in,  as  it  rested,  with  regard  to  its  heavenly 
relations,  on  better  promises,  than  the  old,  so  it  pro- 
olaimed,  as  to  men's  earthly  relations  and  duties,  a 
nobler  and  better  commandment.  "  Love  is  the  ful- 
filling of  the  law,"  and  he  who  loveth,  "  worketh  no  ill 
to  his  neighbor."     He  who,  in  Christ's  spirit,  loves  his 


184 


RELIGIOUS    PROGRESS. 


neighbor,  has  the  Decalogue,  in  compend  and  essence, 
ah-cady  transcribed  on  his  heart.  It  was,  again,  novel 
in  its  motives.  To  intimate  his  full  and  equal  Deity, 
the  Son  here  makes  Love  to  himself,  the  motive  of  holy 
obedience.  Were  His  services  and  His  love  to  us  less 
than  those  of  a  God,  would  such  motive  be  aught  else 
than  insufficient  for  man  and  derogatory  to  our  Father 
in  Heaven  ?  And  it  was  new,  too,  in  its  evidence.  It 
would  become,  before  the  world,  the  badge  and  public 
pledge  of  christian  discipleship.  And  of  the  early 
Christians,  it  is  said,  that  the  heathen  were  wont  to 
exclaim,  "  See  how  these  Christians  love  one  another." 
Is  there  not  here  at  least,  something  to  be  lamented 
and  to  be  amended,  in  regard  to  the  fraternal  sympa- 
thies of  the  churches  of  modern  times  ?  Have  not 
meaner  and  baser  distinctions  become  the  chief  evi- 
dence and  proclamation  to  the  world  of  our  christian 
discipleship  ?  All  who  love  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  in 
sincerity  ought  to  come,  evidently  and  of  right,  within 
the  brotherhood  of  whom  the  apostle  here  speaks. 

2.  But  whilst  I  am  required  to  cherish  and  display 
a  brother's  warm  and  ready  regard  for  these,  are  none 
but  these  my  brethren  ?  We  answer  to  this  question  : 
The  law  of  christian  fraternity,  as  promulgated  in 
■Christ's  new  commandment,  was  intended  to  over-ride, 
but  not  to  obliterate  and  annul  the  law  of  an  earlier 
and  inferior  brotherhood.  If  I  am  to  be  the  kinsman, 
by  spiritual  allegiance  to  a  common  Saviour,  of  all 
who  hold  Him  as  their  head,  I  do  not  therefore 
forego  or  escape  the  law  of  my  natural  kinsmanship 
to  those  whom  Grod  has  made  my  brethren  in  blood. 


BROTHERLY     KINDNESS.  186 

Oar  Lord  himself  taught  the  higher   and   paramount 
obligation  of  the  spiritual  and  celestial    brotherhood, 
when  his  mother  and  brethren,  by  natural  tics,  would 
have  hindered  his  ministry,  and  imputed  to  Him,  the 
Divine  and  Infallible,  delusion  and  madness.     In  com- 
parison with  them,  he  called  rather  those  his  mother 
and  his  brethren  who  heard  and  obeyed  his  teachings. 
But,  still,  he  did  not  abjure  utterly  the  ties  of  earthly 
kindred ;  and,  when  hanging  on  the  Cross,  with  the 
weight  of  a  world's  iniquities  crushing  his  soul,  he  had 
the  eye  and  heart  of  a  son  for  his  human  parent,  and 
bequeathed  the  bereaved  mother  to  the  care  and  home 
of  his   best   beloved   disciple.       Spiritual  ties,  whilst 
overriding,  then,  do  not  annul  and  efface  all  natural 
bonds.     And  who   are  our  brethren,  by  these  earlier 
and  human  ties  ?     We  suppose  all  who  are  near  to  us 
— those  attached  and  grappled  to  us  by  the  domestic 
charities,  our  kindred  in  blood,  and  those  connected 
by  the  ties  of  affinity  as  well  as  those  of  consanguin- 
ity ; — those,  again,  with  whom  we  are  united  of  our 
free  choice  by  the  bonds  of  friendship  ;    and  those, 
lastly,  who  are  our  countrymen,  one  with  us  by  the 
law  of  patriotism.     When  David  lamented  the  fall  of 
Jonathan,  his  friend,  who   had   found,   on  the   high 
places  of  the  field,  an  untimely  but  glorious  death,  he 
cried,  "  I  am  distressed  for  t]    e,  my  brother  Jonathan 
— very  pleasant  hast  thou  been  unto  me."*     We  sup- 
.pose  that  it  was  not  from  the  ties  of  affinity,  as  the  hus- 
band of  Michal,  the  sister  of  Jonathan,  so  much  as  from 
their  close  and  endeared  friendship,  that  the  Psalmist 

*  2  Sam.  I  26. 


186  RELIGIOUS    PROGRESS. 

held  the  son  of  Saul  as  being  thus  his  "  brother."     And 
our  Lord  himself,  in  whom  no  human  affection  had  its 
error  of  excess,  or  error  of  defect,  cherished  for  one  of 
his  apostles  a  special  friendship,  and  by  committing  to 
him  as  a  son,  the  charge  of  the  mother  whose  heart 
had  been  deeply  pierced  as  well  as  richly  blest,  he  did 
treat  this  his  friend,  as  a  brother,  in   another   sense 
from  that  in  which  the  other   apostles,  and  all   Chris- 
tians, are  in  common  his  brethren.     As  to  the  relation- 
ship of  blood  and  common  descent,  the  grace  and  the 
gospel  of  Jesus    did    not    extinguish   these    ties   and 
claims.     The    gospel    speaks   of  the  sons  of   Christ's 
mother,  or  of  Joseph  his  reputed  father,  as  being  his 
brethren,  when  as  yet  they  did  not  believe  on  him  ; 
and  the  Lord  pronounced  a  promise  and  blessing  on 
those  who  had   forsaken   children  or  brethren  for  his 
name's  sake,  as  he  uttered  also  a  warning  that  in  the 
times  of  persecution  yet  to   burst    upon   the    infant 
church,  brother  would,  from  hatred  to   Jesus,  give  up 
brother  to  death.     Again,  in  that  family  of  Bethany, 
all  whose  members  were  believers,  and  were  loved  by 
Christ,  he  spoke  still  of  natural,  rather  than  of  spirit- 
ual kindred,  when  he  said  to  Martha,  one  of  those  sis- 
ters,  "  Thy  brother  shall  rise  again."      And  when  the 
apostles  are  enumerated,  the  ties  of  natural  brother- 
hood that  bound  James  to  John,  and  Peter  to  Andrew, 
are  recognized  in  the  titles  given  to  them,  and  in  the 
order  in  which  the  Holy  Grhost  arranges  the  roll  of 
Christ's  apostle  family. 

But,  beside  this  recognition  of  fraternity  as  consti- 
tuted by  domestic  ties,  and  by  the  voluntary  and  self- 


BROTHERLY     KINDNESS.  187 

assumed  bonds  of  friendship  and  sympathy,  the  New 
Testament  recognized  in  the  impenitent  Jews,  the 
brethren  of  the  apostles,  because  these  Jews  were 
their  countrymen.  Under  the  Old  Testament  dispen- 
sation, this  style  of  appellation  had  been  used.  When 
Moses  rebuked  and  would  have  parted  the  two  He- 
brews whom  he  saw  contending  in  Egypt,  he  said,  "  Ye 
are  brethren  ;"  and  he  forbade  one  Israelite  from  tak- 
ing usury  of  another  because  of  this  fraternal  rela- 
tion. "  Unto  a  stranger  thou  mayest  lend  upon  usury, 
but  unto  thy  brother  thou  shalt  not  lend  upon  usury."* 
And,  after  the  descent  of  the  Spirit  on  the  day  of  Pen- 
tecost, we  find  Peter  and  Stephen  addressing  the 
hardened  haters  and  murderers  of  Christ,  as  "  Men 
and  brethren,"  because  they  were  of  their  country  and 
lineage.  Paul  used  the  same  form  of  speech  to  the 
Jews,  yet  impenitent,  when  addressing  them  in  the 
synagogue  of  Antioch  in  Pisidia;t — when  thrust  upon 
the  stairs,  before  the  riotous  crowd  who  howled  for  his 
blood  in  the  courts  of  the  temple  ;  t — when  pleading 
before  the  council  of  bigoted  and  unbelieving  Phari- 
sees and  Sadducees,  in  that  same  Jerusalem  ;  § — and 
when  he  addressed  the  chief  of  the  Jews,  whom  he 
convened  in  his  hired  house  on  reaching  Rome.  II  To 
others,  not  his  countrymen,  if  they  were  not  believers 
in  Christ,  he  seems  to  have  sedulously  avoided  the  use 
of  this  fraternal  appellation ;  and  hence  amid  the 
shrines  and  statues  of  Athens,  he  opens  his  address 
with  the  words,  "  Men  of  Athens,"!  whilst,  in  urging 

*  Deuter.  xxiii  20.  f  Acts,  xiii.  26.  J  Ibid.  xxii.  1. 

§  Acts,  xxiiL  1.  8  Ibid  xxvLii.  17.  T[  Ibid.  xvii.  22. 


188  RELIGIOUS    PROGRESS. 

his  Gentile  fellow- voyagers  to  cast  off  their  despair, 
and  partake  of  necessary  food,  he  calls  them  "  Sirs."  * 

The  law  of  Christian  and  spiritual  brotherhood, 
whilst  it  does  override,  then,  and  justly  should,  the 
law  of  earlier,  and  earthly,  and  inferior  brotherhood, 
or  the  ties  of  nature,  does  by  no  means,  as  some  sup- 
pose, efface  those  ties.  It  did  not  in  Christ's  own 
practice,  or  in  that  of  his  apostles.  The  friend,  the 
kinsman,  and  the  countryman,  were  still,  in  this  sense, 
and  apart  from  religious  sympathies,  "  brethren :" 
though  the  word  was  the  more  frequently  employed  in 
the  New  Testament  to  describe  the  bonds  of  mutual 
attachment,  of  a  common  duty,  and  a  common  hope, 
and  a  common  Lord  and  a  common  home  on  high,  that 
made  all  disciples  one  family  in  Christ,  and  one  house- 
hold of  faith.  But,  just  as  in  the  law  of  marriage,  the 
husband,  though  forsaking  his  father  or  mother  to 
cling  yet  more  nearly  to  his  wife,  does  not  thereby 
lose,  from  this  controlling  relation,  the  heart  or  the 
ties,  the  feelings  or  the  duties,  of  a  child  to  that  father 
or  mother :  so  in  the  new  and  spiritual  bonds  which 
attachment  to  Christ  brings  upon  His  people, — the  ce- 
lestial obligation  superinduced  upon  the  earthly  rela- 
tion,— ^they  cease  not  to  keep  and  to  owe  all  rightful 
allegiance  to  friendship,  and  the  family,  and  the 
country. 

We  have  thus  seen,  then,  as  the  first  branch  of  our 
subject,  who  are  our  brethren. — Spiritually,  all  are 
such  who  love  Christ  :  naturally,  we  recognize  as 
such    kindred,    friends,    and  countrymen.     Our    rela- 

*  Acts,  xxvii.  21. 


BROTIIERLV     KINDNESS.  189 

tions  to  these  two  classes  are  not  necessarily  conflict- 
ing and  adverse.  The  new  convert  will  be,  for  his 
piety,  all  the  better,  as  a  son,  and  parent,  and  hus- 
band, and  friend,  and  patriot.  But  these  two  classes 
of  obligation  may,  by  men's  hatred  to,  and  persecu- 
tion of  the  truth,  become  adverse.  In  such  case,  as 
we  love  our  souls,  and  as  God  is  greater  than  man, 
the  ties  of  our  brotherhood  to  Christ  are  paramount. 
No  man  can  enter  Heaven  who  does  not,  in  such  case, 
and  in  such  sense,  hate  father  and  mother,  yea,  and 
his  own  life,  if  it  would  interpose  between  his  soul 
and  obedience  to  Jesus,  his  best,  truest,  and  surest  of 
friends. 

Let  us,  imploring  the  aids  of  Grod's  good  Spirit,  now 
consider, 

II.  How  godliness  needs  the  addition  of  brotherly 
kindness. 

III.  How  this  christian  grace  is  to  operate,  in  the 
sphere  of  worldly  and  natural  brotherhood. 

IV.  How  the  same  grace  of  brotherly  kindness  is  to 
affect  us,  in  the  sphere  of  the  spiritual  and  christian 
brotherhood. 

II.  How,  then,  is  it  that  godliness  needs  the  addi- 
tion of  brotherly  kindness  ?  The  grace  of  true  conse- 
cration to  God  and  to  His  glory  requires,  we  reply,  to 
be  reinforced  and  illustrated  by  the  grace  of  tende)- 
ness  and  fraternal  sympathy  for  man. 

1.  Far  as  the  range  of  worldly  brotherhood  extends, 
in  our  relations  to  the  home,  to  the  circles  of  friend- 
ship, and  to  our  countrymen  generally,  godliness 
should  be  guarded  by  this  grace  of  human  sympathy, 


190  RELIGIOUS     PROGRESS. 

to  counteract  an  unjust,  but  common  imputation 
against  true  piety.  To  some  minds  godliness  seems  to 
require  the  utter  contempt  and  disregard  of  these 
worldly  and  natural  ties.  They  read  of  Abraham,  at 
God's  call,  forsaking  his  kindred  and  the  place  of  his 
nativity,  Ur  of  the  Chaldees.  They  see  Levi  honored, 
because,  in  the  work  of  avenging  the  outraged  law  of 
his  Lord,  "  he  knew  not  father  or  mother,"  but  with 
even-handed  severity  cleft  down  all  the  idolatrous  revel- 
lers, however  near  to  himself  they  might  be  by  ties  of 
kindred.  They  hear  the  Saviour  refusing  permission 
to  the  disciple,  who  would  return  home  from  his  ser- 
vice and  errand,  to  bid  farewell  to  them  at  his  own 
home  ;  and  another,  who  pleaded  a  desire  to  inter  his 
deceased  friends,  is  dismissed  sternly,  with  the  warn- 
ing :  "  Let  the  dead  bury  their  dead."  And  so  should 
we  break  through  such  feeble  ties,  if  a  like  emergency, 
and  the  same  great  errand,  and  the  same  indubitable 
and  sovereign  command,  come  upon  us.  But,  does 
the  godly  love  of  Christ  involve,  in  all  times,  and  to 
all  persons,  such  estrangement  from  ordinary  duties, 
and  such  prompt  disruption  of  all  social  bonds  ?  Some 
make  the  mistake  here,  which  renders  the  apostle's 
caution  in  this  classification  of  christian  graces,  neces- 
sary. Piety  is  not  necessarily  unbrotherly  and  un- 
kind. 

To  others,  godliness  seems  to  involve  a  disowning 
of  all  their  old  associations  and  bonds,  because  they 
see  the  dominion  of  error  and  iniquity  in  the  world 
around,  and  they  believe  it  the  readiest  way  to  disen- 
tangle their  own  feet,  and  rid  their  own  souls  of  bur 


BROTHERLY     KINDNESS.  191 

(lens  and  perils,  by  doing,  what  Paul  says  they  need  not, 
and  should  not  do, — they  "  go  out  of  the  world."  Duty 
to  Grod  may  require  us  not  to  be  of  the  world,  indeed  : 
and,  yet,  duty  to  God  and  man  may  quite  as  distinctly 
require  us  to  be  in  the  world.  The  monk,  fleeing  to 
the  wilderness, — the  spiritualist,  overlooking  his  en- 
gagements to  society  and  the  household,  in  the  care 
of  the  closet  and  his  soul, — are  answerable  for  an 
error  here,  against  which  our  text,  as  by  anticipation, 
protests  most  clearly  and  fully.  Their  godliness  lacks 
brotherly  kindness. 

So,  too,  the  hostility  of  the  worldly  to  true  piety, 
venting  itself  of  old  by  statutes,  and  penalties,  in- 
carceration and  martyrdom,  and  all  the  forms  of  vio- 
lent persecution  ; — venting  itself  in  our  times,  rather 
in  derision  and  cruel  mockery,  and  ready  falsehood, 
may  easily  provoke  in  the  minds  of  the  truly  godly,  a 
strangeness  and  an  alienation  that  would,  unchecked, 
issue  in  utter  isolation.  But,  this  is  rather  natural  than 
justifiable.  It  is  not  so  much  the  strength  of  the  Chris- 
tian's godliness,  as  the  human  weakness  intermingled 
with,  and  diluting  that  piety,  which  thus  teaches  him  to 
withdraw,  because  he  has  cause  of  complaint.  "When 
a  man's  enemies  are  thus  in  his  own  household ;  or 
when  the  literature  of  a  country  travesties  and  belies 
the  truly  pious,  as  Hudibras  travestied  the  Puritans, 
or,  as  the  buffoonery  of  Foote  belied  the  early  Meth- 
odists, it  is  easy  for  the  man  to  yield  to  the  temptation 
of  abjuring  the  ungodly,  who  so  wrong  and  misrepre- 
sent him.  AVhen  the  Psalmist  became,  as  he  said, 
''  the  drunkardh  son^"  he   might  be   easily  moved 


192  RELIGIOUS     PROGRESS. 

to  shun  all  acquaintance  with  the  reveller,  and  to  re- 
nounce even  poetry  and  music,  because  they  had  been, 
in  the  godless  ballad,  so  prostituted  and  desecrated. 

Again,  even  when  the  righteous  man  feels  no  such 
spirit  of  retaliation  for  cruel  mockery  and  foul  slan- 
ders, the  worldly,  hating  where  they  injure,  stand 
aloof  from  their  victim,  and  then  impute  to  him  the 
isolation,  which  is  not  the  result  of  his  choice,  but 
their  own.  Thus,  Joseph  Milner,  the  pious  historian 
of  the  church,  in  the  early  days  of  his  ministry,  when 
Methodism  was  yet  a  word  of  terror  and  horror  ta 
multitudes,  speaks  of  a  long  season  in  his  own  pasto- 
ral relations  in  the  English  Established  Church,  in 
Hull,  the  very  place  where,  afterwards,  he  was  so 
honored,  when  of  his  townsmen  "  no  man  wearing  a 
good  coat  would  recognize  him  in  the  street."  And  a 
similar  shyness  and  absence  of  all  friendly  greetings, 
marked  the  earlier  ministry  of  Charles  Simeon,  in  that 
University  of  Cambridge,  where  afterwards  he  was  so 
crowned  with  favor  and  honor  of  God,  and  of  man 
also. 

2.  But  not  only  may  the  bonds  of  worldly  and 
human  brotherhood,  thus,  with  or  without  the  Chris- 
tian's fault,  be  seemingly  sundered  by  his  godliness  : 
a  man's  piety  may  seem  to  hinder  his  recognition  at 
times  of  the  ties  of  spiritual  brotherhood  also.  If  it  be 
asked,  how  this  can  be,  let  it  be  remembered  in  reply, 
that  a  man  of  eminent  devoutness  may  eagily  become 
absorbed  and  abstracted  in  manner.  It  was  a  matter 
of  complaint,  against  one  of  the  most  eminent  Chris- 
tians of  our  own  country,  whose  life  was  as  eminent 


BROTHERLY     LOVE.  193 

for  pastoral  fidelity,  as  was  his  death-bed  for  its  tri- 
umphant raptures,  that  his  brethren  found  him  at 
times  unsocial.  The  ordinary  associates  of  Calvin 
thought  him,  some  of  them,  not  duly  afflicted  and  sym- 
pathizing, when  his  only  child  sunk  in  early  infancy  to 
the  grave.  And  as  to  the  early  Christians,  we  find 
the  Roman  historian  charging  them  with  "  hatred  of 
the  human  race,"  probably  on  the  mere  ground  of  their 
conscientious  abstinence  from  the  amusements  and 
associations  around  them, — all  contaminated  and  con- 
taminating as  these  were,  by  the  sedulous  infusion  of 
idolatry  into  them.  Their  piety  made  them,  to  a 
careless  observer,  seem  shy  and  sad  and  misanthropic. 
And,  in  our  more  peaceful  times,  goodness  may  be- 
come so  ethereal  as  to  be  comparatively  unearthly. 
Like  the  bewildered  disciples  on  the  Mountain  of 
Transfiguration,  the  rapt  worshippers  of  God  may 
scarce  know  what  they  are  saying  or  doing,  as  they 
return  to  less  solemn  and  less  glorious^sceiles. 

3.  But  a  more  disastrous  barrier  to  this  brotherly 
kindness,  is  the  existence  and  rage  of  controversy 
among  Christians.  It  is  well  that  they  should  love 
the  truth,  and  all  the  truth,  for  it  is  a  deposit  from 
God,  which  they  may  not  relinquish,  or  hide,  or 
divide  and  modify.  Truth,  too,  is  the  very  support  of 
holiness,  and  must  become  the  ultimate  platform  and 
basis  of  a  common  union.  Yet  their  zeal  may  not  be 
godly,  and  with  imperfect  sanctification,  and  imperfect 
enlightenment,  they  may  hold  the  truth  dispropor- 
tionately, and  defend  it  unworthily,  and  with  unchris- 
tian fierceness  or  levity,  or  even  unfairness  and  evasion. 
9 


iM  RELIGIOUS     PROGRESS. 

Thus  divided  and  jarring,  it  is  hard  even  for  an  Owen 
and  a  Baxter,  eminent  as  each  was  for  godliness,  to  do 
full  kindness  and  jxistice  to  his  dissentient  brother  in 
Christ ;  and  Wesley  and  Toplady,  and  Fletcher  and 
Hill,  in  later  times,  would  each  find,  in  their  zeal  for 
the  truth  as  they  held  it,  excuse  for  disliking  or  de- 
nouncing a  true  brother  whose  views  of  that  truth 
were  not  their  views. 

4.  But  especially  has  the  acceptance  by  Christians, 
from  the  state,  of  the  snare  and  fetter  of  worldly 
endowment,  and  of  legislation  for  the  Christian  Church, 
made  it  difficult  for  the  godly  to  be  also  the  brotherly. 
Treating  the  Church,  so  fettered,  as  a  tool,  rather  than 
as  a  queen,  statesmen  have  corrupted  her  discipline, 
and  doctrine,  and  morality  ;  and  whilst  the  pious  have 
been  found  adhering  to  her,  others  equally  or  more 
pious  have  been  amerced  and  defamed,  imprisoned  or 
hunted  into  exile,  or  chased  through  martyr-fires  from 
earth  to  Heaven.  Hard  has  it  been  for  the  true  breth- 
ren of  Christ,  thus  within  and  without  the  pale  of  a 
national  establishment,  to  recognize  and  love  each  other. 
Yet  it  has  been  done.  Sir  Matthew  Hale,  in  the  Estab- 
lished Church,  was  the  friend  of  Baxter,  the  persecuted 
Non-conformist,  and  was  k  ind  to  the  wife  of  the  maligned 
and  oppressed  Bunyan,  another  glorious  name  in  Non- 
conformity. But  in  the  days  when  Scotch  Episcopacy 
persecuted  the  stern  Covenanters  with  fire  and  sword, 
it  was  not  to  be  expected  that  the  saintly  Leighton, 
even,  on  the  one  side,  should  aright  know  and  love  his 
brethren,  the  martyred  Renwick,  Cameron,  and  McCail, 
on  the  other  side. 


BROTHERLY     LOVE.  195 

Godliness,  in  its  estrangement  from  earth,  and  in 
its  controversies,  and  in  the  treacherous  and  crippling 
alliance  of  the  state,  may  seem  to  be  unfriendly  to 
brotherly  kindness.  And  yet  without  fraternal  affec- 
tion to  those  bearing  Christ's  likeness,  godliness  cannot 
be  perfect.  It  needs  the  brotherhood  human  and  the 
brotherhood  divine — the  field  of  the  church  not  only, 
but  of  the  friendly  band,  of  the  household,  and  of  the 
country,  to  develope  its  powers  of  good  and  to  display 
its  genuineness  and  celestial  loveliness. 

Kindness  to  our  brother  man,  again,  needs  for  its 
own  culture  and  control,  for  its  perpetual  spring  and 
exhaustless  source,  the  love  and  the  fear  of  Almighty 
God.  "When  we  love  our  fellow-man,  but  for  our  own 
sake,  and  for  his  sake,  disappointments  weary,  and  in- 
gratitude worries  us ;  and  we  are  prone,  as  death 
removes  friends,  or  change  alienates  them,  to  exchange 
sympathy  for  selfishness,  and  friendly  diligence  for 
indolent  apathy.  The  English  poet,  in  lines  often 
quoted,  compares  friendly  and  benevolent  feelings  to 
the  ripples  of  a  lake  stirred  by  a  falling  pebble.  The 
circle  widens  anS  spreads  till  all  the  body  of  water  is 
moved  and  the  shore  is  reached.  But  in  the  human 
friendliness  that  proceeds  from  earthly  and  inferior 
motives,  who  can  insure  the  continuance  of  sympathy 
in  its  energy  ?  Where,  we  ask,  if  a  man's  benevolence 
is  only  from  kindness  of  temper,  or  from  love  of  fame, 
or  influence, — and  change  and  Death  have  removed 
the  old  friends,  and  age  is  saddening  the  spirit  and 
chilling  the  sympathies ;  where  are  you  to  find  fresh 
pebbles  to  keep  up  the  play  and  spread  of  the  circling 


196  RELIGIOUS     PROGRESS. 

waters  ?  But  Christianity,  beginning  in  the  Love  of 
God,  finds  in  His  nature  and  love,  his  everlasting 
tenderness  and  changeless  excellence,  in  his  renewed 
pardons  and  brightening  hopes,  as  they  multiply  along 
our  pilgrim  way,  not  an  occasional  excitement,  but  a 
steady  and  growing  fountain  ; — not  the  falling  pebble, 
but  the  upbursting  spring — a  G-eyser  of  hope  and  love 
and  zeal,  "  springing  up  into  everlasting  life."  And 
when  men  lose  their  regard  for  God  and  godliness,  they 
are  not  likely  to  preserve  long  and  generally  their 
active  sympathies  for  man.  The  first  murderer,  when 
he  began  by  doubting  God's  rights  to  the  claim  of  a 
bloody  sacrifice,  soon  learned,  in  renouncing  godliness, 
to  untwist  the  bond  of  fraternal  charities  that  held  him 
to  the  more  righteous  Abel,  and  to  ask  insolently,  whilst 
his  hands  were  yet  red  with  the  gore  of  a  less  innocent 
sacrifice  than  that  which  he  had  refused  to  his  God, 
"  Am  I  my  brother's  keeper  ?"  Piety  needs  human 
kindness,  to  render  it  lovely  before  men,  and  obedient 
before  God ;  and  human  kindliness  needs  piety  as  its 
guide  and  perennial  source. 

III.  We  now  reach  that  division  of  our  subject  in 
which  we  consider  how  the  christian  grace  of  brother- 
ly kindness  is  to  fill  up  the  sphere  of  worldly  brother- 
hood, embracing  as  that  does,  friendship,  kindred,  and 
country. 

1.  As  to  the  power  of  religion  to  adorn  and  cement 
friendship,  the  history  of  the  Church  speaks  emphati- 
cally. In  the  generous  sympathies  of  David  and  Jon- 
athan, when  the  one  renounced  a  throne,  and  the  othei 
^rusted  and  leaned  on  the  heir  whom  he  saw  himself 


BROTHERLY  LOVE. 


397 


called  in  God's  purposes  to  replace,  each  seeking  to  ex- 
cel the  other,  in  tenderness,  and  truthfulness,  and 
magnanimity ;  in  Luther  and  Melancthon,  bringing 
their  combined  strength,  and  prayers,  and  studies,  to 
the  helm  of  the  church,  in  times  of  fiercest  tempest 
and  revolution ;  in  the  love  that  bound  Calvin  and 
Beza,  and  in  after  days,  Edwards  and  Whitfield;  and 
in  our  own  times  of  reviving  missionary  zeal,  in  the 
threefold  cord  not  broken,  of  Fuller,  and  Carey,  and 
Ryland,  seen  binding  the  heathenism  of  India  to  the 
heart  of  Christian  Britain, — as  the  prophet  attached 
himself  to  the  dead  son  of  the  Shunammite, — not  to 
imbibe  its  corruption,  but  to  impart  their  better  life, 
till  the  dead  awoke  ;  in  the  friendship  of  a  Simeon  and 
a  Martyn,  and  a  Corrie,  and  of  others  whose  names 
time  fails  to  tell ; — is  it  not  seen  that  Christianity,  in- 
stead of  annihilating  friendship,  really  ennobles,  puri- 
fies, and  perpetuates  it  ? 

In  the  relations  of  the  family,  apostles  were  patterns 
of  brotherly  influence,  made  to  aid  in  the  advancement 
of  mutual  piety ;  and  the  Erskines  of  Scotland,  the 
"Wesleys  of  England,  and  the  Tennents  of  America  af- 
ford similar  instances  of  God's  taking  one  of  a  city  and 
two  of  a  family  to  honor  him.  In  the  conjugal  and 
parental  relations,  Scotland  owes  the  order  and  purity 
of  her  homes  confessedly  to  the  Reformation ;  and  in 
the  households  of  Philip  Henry,  the  Non-conformist, 
and  Edward  Payson,  the  American  Congregationalist, 
and  of  Wilberforce  and  of  Leigh  Richmond,  the  En- 
glish Episcopalians,  did  not  Religion  lend  and  receive 
new  lustre,  in  its  influence  on  the  domestic  charities  ? 


198  RELIGIOUS     PROGRESS. 

True,  tli(5  ties  of  natural  kindred  may  bind  together 
those  who  have  no  spiritual  affinities  or  sympathies. 
The  devout  Edwards  was  the  ancestor  of  the  profligate 
and  thrice-hardened  Aaron  Burr.  Divine  grace  is  not 
a  hereditament.  And,  from  the  want  of  due  rehgious 
sympathy,  the  intercourse  in  this  world,  of  the  irre- 
ligious and  religious  kinsman,  may  often  be,  to  use 
the  metaphor  of  John  Newton,  like  the  discourse  of 
strangers  gathered  under  the  same  pent-house  by  a 
sudden  rain-storm,  wanting  in  cordiality,  and  inter- 
rupted soon  as  the  stress  that  commenced  it  will  per- 
mit ;  yet  many  will  through  eternity  bless  God  for 
the  ■  filial,  and  parental,  and  fraternal  influence  of 
christian  kindred,  that  at  one  time  but  saddened  and 
wearied  them,  but  won  them  at  last  to  Christ  and 
Heaven. 

As  to  the  effects  of  religion  on  those  who  are  our 
brethren  because  our  countrymen,  the  topic  of  Christi- 
anity in  its  relations  to  the  nation  is  too  vast  and  com- 
plicated to  be  at  this  time  discussed.  Without  becom- 
ing the  pensioners,  and  so  the  dependants  of  the  state, 
the  churches  may  leaven  the  nation  with  their  princi- 
ples of  order,  and  virtue,  and  benevolence — may  edu- 
cate the  national  conscience,  and  denounce  and  stem 
the  nation's  transgressions.  Happy  the  land  girdled 
around  by  thousands  of  christian  sanctuaries,  and 
closets.  It  is  evidently  a  duty  of  christian  patriotism, 
to  urge  thoroughly  the  work  of  Home  Missions,  and  to 
send  the  Bible  and  Sabbath-school  and  ministry  on  the 
very  crest  of  the  westward  waves  of  emigration.  And 
in  a  country  like  our  own,  where  not,  as  in  Palestine, 


BROTHERLY     LOVE.  199 

a  single  rane  are  the  rightful  citizens,  but  where  Prov- 
idence has  gathered  into  a  common  asylum  the  men 
of  many  and  discordant  races,  fusing  into  one  mass 
those  long  and  far  dissevered  from  each  other  in  their 
original  homes  and  in  their  earliest  training,  how  bless- 
ed may  be  the  influence  of  that  gospel  which  is  for 
all  .nations,  and  which  teaches  them  that  "of  one 
blood"  God  hath  made  them  all.  Receiving  as  our 
shores  have  done,  the  victims  of  religious  persecution, 
the  hunted  and  maligned  Puritan,  the  Huguenot  ex- 
patriated from  sunny  France,  the  Hollander  mindful 
of  his  country's  old  woes  from  the  relentless  Alva,  the 
Baptist  and  the  Quaker  fleeing  from  intolerance  in 
Britain,  and  intolerance  yet  more  inexcusable  in  New 
England,  the  Waldensian  colonists  and  the  Moravian, 
of  some  of  our  Southern  States  ;  and  the  Saltzburgher 
exiles  of  Germany,  for  the  sake  of  religion,  driven  from 
home  and  country  ;  it  is  to  be  hoped,  that  no  return  to 
mediaeval  usages,  and  no  growth  of  anti-christian  error 
can  plant  here  the  persecuting  principles  and  hierarchies 
of  Europe,  or  make  Dominic,  the  founder  of  the  Inqui- 
sition, a  patron  saint  amongst  these  free-born  men. 
Of  the  slavery  that  afflicts  a  large  portion  of  our  terri- 
tory, let  us  hope  that  the  gospel  will  work  the  quiet 
and  universal  subversion  :  whilst  against  a  wild  spirit 
of  conquest,  and  lust  of  territory,  and  avidity  for  plun- 
der and  military  glory,  let  us  trust  that  christian  zeal 
and  principle  in  our  citizens,  and  christian  fidelity  iu 
our  pulpits,  and  christian  enterprise  in  our  homes  and 
sanctuaries  will  yet  preserve  us. 

But  if  the  nation  should  ever  enact  the  wrong,  and 


200  RELIGIOUS     PROGRESS. 

frame  iniquity  by  a  law, — if  superstition  should  ever 
become  here  dominant  and  persecuting,  let  us  rejoice 
in  the  hope  that  the  law  of  Christ  will  have  here,  as  in 
like  scenes  it  elsewhere  has  had,  its  fearless  and  faith- 
ful confessors,  who  knowing  and  fearing  God  rather 
than  man,  will  see  in  the  pleadings  of  friendship  and 
the  claims  of  home  and  the  laws  of  the  country  but 
inferior  and  subsidiary  influences,  and  dare  to  spurn 
all  or  either,  when  either  or  all  would  usurp  on  the 
claims  of  Conscience  and  the  G-od  of  Conscience. 

For  Patriotism,  and  Friendship,  and  Home,  as  they 
have  in  the  gospel  their  surest  support  and  guard,  so 
do  they  owe  to  it  as  a  paramount  authority,  their  sub- 
mission. In  the  histories  of  ancient  martyrdom,  we 
see  christian  women  resisting  the  tears  and  prayers 
of  parental  and  conjugal  tenderness,  that  they  might 
follow  Christ  and  escape  idolatry.  We  are  to  love  our 
brethren  by  ties  of  nature  much,  but  we  love  them 
wisely  only  as  we  love  God  more. 

IV.  And,  now,  have  we  reached  the  closing  division 
of  our  theme — the  manner  in  which  the  christian 
grace,  which  the  apostle  here  enjoins,  should  be  dis- 
played in  the  distinct  sphere  of  spiritual  brotherhood. 

Within  the  same  church,  then,  the  disciples  of  our 
Saviour  need  to  be  more  and  more  given  to  mutual 
intercession.  It  is  animating,  and  yet  as  contrasted 
with  our  prevalent  remissness,  humiliating,  to  read 
how  Baxter  and  his  people  held  days  of  fasting  and 
prayer  for  each  other  ;  or  to  turn  to  the  pages  which 
describe  a  christian  matron  at  the  South, — the  wife 
of  Ramsay,  and  the  daughter  of  Henry  Laurens,  the 


BROTHERLY     LOVE.  201 

President  of  the  Continental  Congress, — praying  over 
a  list  of  her  fellow-members,  name  by  name,  and  re- 
membering to  the  best  of  her  knowledge  the  cares 
and  wants  of  each  before  the  throne  of  grace. 

Christians  in  this  day  need,  again,  to  ponder  the 
warnings  of  James,  as  to  social  and  terrestrial  dis- 
tinctions, unduly  dwelt  upon  in  the  intercourse  of  fel- 
low-disciples. The  honor  given  to  worldly  pomp  and 
wealth,  and  the  mere  formal  and  fluent  sympathy  of 
words  without  deeds  shown  to  the  needy  Christian,  are 
not  obsolete  evils.  Those  of  the  poor  indeed  who  com- 
plain that  they  are  not  made  more  the  companions  and 
visitants  of  the  wealthy,  may  show  quite  as  much,  in 
their  complaints,  a  carnal  spirit,  as  does  the  wealthy 
disciple,  who  is  shy  and  distant  towards  his  truly  pious 
neighbor  because  of  his  poverty.  The  church  is  not 
to  be  made,  on  one  side,  a  mere  stepping-stone  to  re- 
spectable acquaintance ;  nor,  on  the  other  side,  is  the 
condition  in  worldly  wealth  or  culture,  of  a  fellow- 
disciple,  to  be  made  an  excuse  for  shutting  against 
him  the  heart  of  christian  sympathy.  There  is  a 
fault,  here,  to  be  lamented  and  removed.  In  the 
churches  of  converts  in  India,  Bishop  AVilson  and  oth- 
ers have  labored  faithfully  in  endeavoring  to  break  up 
the  law  of  caste,  or  of  proud,  social  isolation,  to  which 
the  Hinduo  so  obstinately  clings.  He  is  retaining  it 
from  his  old  Braminism  ;  but  we  are  inexcusable  if  we 
graft  it,  from  the  code  of  Fashion,  as  an  unseemly  and 
ulcerous  interpolation,  on  the  law  of  Christ's  house- 
hold. Fraternity  among  Christians,  again,  requires 
that  we  do  not  abandon  merely  to  the  care  of  the 
9* 


202  RELIGIOUS     PROGRESS, 

State,  the  poor  and  dependent  of  our  fellow-disciples. 
They  may,  in  the  case  of  poorer  churches,  receive  the 
aid ;  but  the  churches  owe  to  them  something  more 
and  something  better.  It-  is  not  obedience  to  chris- 
tian discipleship  to  dismiss  our  poorer  brother  through 
the  cold  mediation  of  the  collector  of  the  town  taxes ; 
and  having  paid  our  apportionment,  as  the  civil  law 
exacted  it,  for  the  support  of  alms-houses,  and  having 
secured  the  receipt  of  the  official  tax-gatherer,  sup- 
pose ourselves  to  have  done  all  that  the  Redeemer 
asked,  when  he  said,  "  Inasmuch  as  ye  have  done  it 
unto  one  of  the  least  of  these  my  brethren,  ye  have 
done  it  unto  me."  Christ  has  higher  rights  in  his 
ransomed  and  vowed  people.  The  law  of  brotherly 
kindness,  again,  extends  to  offences.  As  the  sanctifi- 
cation  of  Christians  is  yet  but  imperfect,  there  are  in 
Christ's  true  people  remains  of  Evil.  Some  of  these 
are  venial,  and  it  is  the  office  of  Christian  Charity  to 
cover  them ;  others  are  grave  and  deadly,  and  a  true 
kindness  will  accuse  and  reprove  and  discipline  them. 
But  to  avail,  it  must  be  done  in  the  spirit  of  meek- 
ness. Christ  never  authorized  his  ministers  or  his 
churches  to  anoint  the  wounds,  and  the  ulcers  even, 
of  the  most  unworthy  with  the  corrosive  and  the  poi- 
sonous, in  our  language  and  in  our  temper.  Even 
"  the  sharp  rebuke"  and  stern,  which  some  offences 
may  require,  and  of  which  in  the  reprimands  and  de- 
nunciations of  Christ  himself  we  have  the  example, 
should  be  kindly  in  its  severe  fidelity  ;  and  if  there  be 
needed  at  times  vehement  utterance,  yet  we  must 
cherish  purest  motives  and  a  benign  spirit. 


BROTHERLY     LOVE.  203 

But,  beyond  the  precincts  of  our  own  church,  are 
others  of  our  own  denomination,  and  yet  others,  not 
of  the  same  sectarian  badge  and  banner  with  that 
borne  by  ourselves.  Far  as  they  resemble  Christ, 
they  deserve  our  love.  We  should  seek  their  sym- 
pathy and  fraternal  cooperation,  though  not  by  the 
sacrifice  of  any  truth,  indeed.  There  have  been  en- 
deavors to  unite  dissentient  Christians,  but  on  some 
wrong  and  ruinous  basis  ; — the  sacrifice  of  some  prin- 
ciple, the  holding  in  abeyance  some  portion  of  Scrip- 
ture, or  the  adoption  of  some  human  and  imaginary 
basis,  instead  of  Christ's  platform, — the  truth, — suffi- 
cient, eternal,  and  one.  Such  endeavors  after  union 
have  failed,  and  must  fail,  and  ought  to  fail.  Far  as 
Christians,  in  our  times,  seek  alliance  on  other  and 
safer  principles,  let  us  rejoice  ;  and,  when,  as  yet, 
their  plans  seem  rather  a  vague  wish,  than  a  settled 
scheme,  let  us  rejoice  at  the  desire,  where  we  may  not 
be  able  to  subscribe  to  the  method.  The  church  has 
now,  beside  her  pulpits,  her  religious  journals.  How 
needful  and  becoming,  that  these  should  be  gentle,  and 
truthful,  and  healing,  and  devout,  whilst  preserving 
all  fearless  fidelity. 

But,  in  other  lands  Christ  has  his  people,  speaking 
other  than  ours  of  the  earth's  many  dialects,  and 
trained  under  another  ecclesiastical  regimen.  Shall 
we  disown  them,  or  forget  them  ?  No.  Let  us  grap- 
ple heart  to  heart  across  intervening  seas,  and  spite  of 
discordant  shibboleths.  Is  not  Tholuck  ours,  and 
Neander,  though  on  Grerman  shores,  and  surrounded 
by  other   usages  ?     Was   not  Vinet,  and   is   not  yet 


204  RELIGIOUS     PROGRESS. 

D'Aubigne  in  Switzerland,  laboring  in  our  cause,  if 
only,  tlirougli  them,  Christ's  truth  be  vindicated  and 
diffused?  Yes, — the  missionary,  and  the  missionary 
convert ; — the  witness  for  forgotten  truths  amid  old 
formalism  ; — the  advocate  for  Christ's  grace,  as  the 
one  hope  of  man,  amid  the  votaries  of  rituals  and 
state-creeds — all — far  as  they  breathe  Christ's  spirit, 
and  do  Christ's  work,  are  our  brethren  and  fellow- 
laborers  ;  and  to  them,  near  or  remote,  we  owe  our 
sympathies  and  prayers,  which  no  distance,  territorial 
or  denominational,  can  intercept,  or  defeat. 

The  theme  is  wide.  It  spreads  far  as  the  gospel 
tracks  the  race,  through  all  climes.  It  spreads  into 
coming  times,  and  the  endless  world.  One  with 
Christ,  we  are  one  in  heart,  with  the  church  triumph- 
ant, as  well  as  the  church  militant,  and  we  rejoice  in 
those  who  have  gone  before  us,  as  we  do,  in  dim  and 
vague  prospect,  in  those  who  are  to  come  after  us. 

How  glorious  is  Christ's  philosophy  !  And,  were  it 
but  an  invention  of  the  schools,  how  loudly,  and 
widely,  and  long,  would  it  have  been  extolled,  for  its 
simplicity  and  comprehensiveness,  its  reach  of  benevo- 
lence, and  its  power  of  endurance  and  achievement. 

It  shall  endure  when  philosophers  that  have  scouted 
and  blasphemed  it,  have  gone  by.  It  shall  reconcile 
the  race,  and  heal  all  earth's  woes  and  wrongs,  by  fix- 
ing, first,  the  eyes  and  hearts  of  men  on  the  great 
WTongs  of  man  against  his  God,  and  on  the  one  great 
Remedy  of  that  wrong  in  a  Grod  incarnate,  dying  and 
atoning  for  our  sins,  and  giving  freely,  as  the  boon 


BROTHERLY     KINDNESS.  205 

won  by  his  bitter  agonies,  the  renewing  Spirit,  and, 
among  its  sweet  influences,  brotherly  concord  here, 
the  earnest  and  the  emblem  of  a  firmer  concord,  in 
the  larger  brotherhood  that  shall,  hereafter,  form  the 
family  of  Heaven 


LECTURE  II. 

CHARITY. 

"  AND   TO  BROTHERLY   KINDNESS,  CHARITY. 

2  Peler,  i.  7. 

The  word  rendered  "  charity"  is,  in  the  original,  the 
same  term  which  is,  in  many  other  parts  of  the  New 
Testament,  translated  "  love."  It  is  here  placed  as  the 
key-stone  in  the  arch  of  the  christian  graces,  at  the 
same  time  crowning,  towering  over,  and  binding  to- 
gether all  the  rest. 

But  its  honors  are  often  usurped  by  other  and 
meaner,  and  even  by  opposite  principles.  Of  old,  when 
G-od  wrought  wonders,  to  extort  from  Egypt  and  her 
reluctant  king  the  liberation  of  His  own  chosen  tribes, 
the  magicians  of  the  land  would  parody  and  thus  rival 
the  miracles  of  the  Hebrew  prophet.  And  thus  it  has 
been  often  since.  The  policy  of  Satan  has  still  been 
to  travesty,  and,  in  that  mode,  to  discredit  the  won- 
drous works  and  the  illustrious  benefits  of  Grod.  When 
Christianity,  in  her  fresh  youth,  startled  the  nations 
by  the  splendor  of  her  moral  miracles  in  the  reforma- 
tion of  character  and  in  the  relief  of  sorrow,  Julian, 
the  apostate,  an  envenomed  persecutor  of  the  gospel, 
would  reanimate  the  Grod-smitte.i    corpse   if  ancient 


CHARITY.  207 

Paganism,  by  teaching  the  Pagan  priests  to  imitate 
the  moral  blamelessness  of  christian  ministers,  and 
the  Pagan  worshippers  to  show  the  liberality  and  sym- 
pathy for  the  poor  and  suffering  which  were  shown  by 
the  votaries  of  the  cross.  He  would  imitate  and  emu- 
late certain  effects  of  the  gospel,  in  order  to  disparage 
and  replace  it.  So  in  later  times,  when  Satan  found 
Christianity  overrunning  the  earth,  he  brought  forth, 
in  Antichrist,  the  fearful  imitation  and  counterfeit  of 
the  true  Christ.  Popery  was  a  resuscitation  of  the  old 
Judaism  ; — a  local  and  ritual  religion,  with  great  truths 
retained  on  its  creed,  and  worn  as  on  its  frontlets  and 
phylacteries,  but  all  of  them  interspersed  with  a  more 
than  Pagan  sensualism,  and  a  more  than  Pharisaic 
formalism ;  and  bringing  into  the  temple  of  G-od 
another  gospel,  which  is  not  another,  and  another  sal- 
vation than  that  by  grace  through  the  Redemption 
that  is  in  Christ.  And  so,  what  Pagan  and  Papal 
rivalry  did  in  earlier  times,  we  see  Scepticism  repeat- 
ing in  these  modern  days.  Under  the  name  of  Charity 
is  installed  mere  Liberalism  by  many  modern  Reform- 
ers ;  and  by  them  and  their  disciples,  Christ,  instead  of 
being  a  spiritual  Emancipator,  whose  main  work  is 
with  the  soul  and  his  greatest  gifts  for  eternity,  is 
represented  as  being  but  a  Tribune  of  the  people,  aim- 
ing at  and  sacrificed  for  the  political  enfranchisement 
and  the  secular  elevation  of  the  degraded  and  sufFering 
and  down-trodden  masses.  But,  as  of  old  the  coun- 
terfeits of  Egyptian  sorcery  were  soon  exhausted,  and 
sunk  away,  eclipsed  by  the  brighter  and  vaster  mira- 
cles that  God's  own  hand  wrought  for  his  Israel,  so 


208  RELIGIOUS    PROGRESS. 

will  it  be  seen  in  tlie  progress  of  the  trial,  between 
Christ  as  against  the  old  Antichrist  of  Papal  superstition, 
and  the  newer  Antichrist  of  Modern  Infidelity,  that  the 
rod  of  power,  and  the  balm  of  healing,  and  the  palm  of 
victory,  are  all  in  the  hands  of  the  one  Christ, — Infi- 
nite, All-sufficing,  and  Unchangeable, — the  only  Re- 
deemer and  only  hope  of  the  race.  And  what  is  Char- 
ity in  HIS  Scriptures,  and  what  are  its  relative  honors, 
and  its  appropriate  results  ? 

I.  The  place  Charity  occupies  ;  II.  Its  real  nature  ; 
and  III.  Its  Scriptural  fruits,  are  the  divisions  under 
which  we  would  group  our  present  remarks. 

I.  As  to  its  place,  the  apostle  here  ranges  it  last,  as 
the  final  and  crowning  grace.  All  those  indeed  which 
in  his  enumeration  precede  it,  do  also  presuppose  this, 
as  necessary  to  their  own  existence,  and  are  in  the 
eyes  of  Grod  hollow  and  worthless  without  the  presence 
and  power  of  this,  as  being  the  informing  soul,  the  pre- 
dominant motive  of  them  all.  Love  is  the  fulfilling  of 
the  Divine  Law,  as  guiding  and  inciting  faith,  and 
virtue,  and  knowledge,  and  temperance,  and  patience, 
and  godliness,  and  brotherly  kindness.  It  is  brought 
forward  last  in  our  text,  not  as  being  in  itself  inde- 
pendent of,  and  in  order  of  time,  subsequent  to  those 
which  the  apostle  has  before  recounted ;  but  here,  as 
elsewhere,  it  is  exalted,  because  of  its  power  to  keep 
in  unison  all  the  other  graces,  as  the  knot  completes 
and  holds  together  the  garland  ;  and  therefore,  it  would 
seem,  it  is  last  named.  Thus,  Paul  in  his  epistle  to 
the  Colossians,*  bids  them  "  above  all  these  things  put 

*  Coloss.  iii.  14. 


CHARITY.  209 

on  charity,  which  is  the  bond  of  perfectness ;"  or,  in 
other  words,  not  only  binding  but  perfecting,  it  is  like 
the  master  rivet  that  holds  together  the  chief  beams 
in  the  framework  and  roofing  of  the  edifice.  And 
Peter,  the  writer  of  our  text,  has  in  his  first  epistle 
used  almost  the  same  language  :*  "  and,  above  all 
things,  have  fervent  charity  among  yourselves,  for 
charity  shall  cover  the  multitude  of  sins."  Like  the 
uppermost  mantle  flung  over  all  the  other  robes  of  the 
oriental  dress,  it  adds  the  crowning  dignity,  and  pre- 
serves them  in  their  appropriate  position.  This  its 
high  and  completing  office,  Paul  elsewhere  intimates 
in  yet  another  form  of  language,  when  he  describes  it 
in  his  first  epistle  to  Timothy  :t  "  The  end  of  the  com- 
mandment," or  its  last,  highest,  and  consummate  re- 
sult, "  is  charity  out  of  a  pure  heart  and  of  a  good  con- 
science and  of  faith  unfeigned  ;"  or  as  in  his  letter  to 
the  disciples  at  Rome  in  yet  other  words  he  states  it : 
"  Love  is  the  fulfilling  of  the  law."|  It  is  in  his  ad- 
dress to  the  Gralatian  Christians  represented  as  the 
secret  source  and  band  of  all  kindly  offices  among 
Christians  :  "  By  love  serve  one  another ;  for  all  the  law 
is  fulfilled  in  one  word,  even  in  this,  '  Thou  shalt  love 
thy  neighbor  as  thyself.'  "  k  And  Paul's  Master,  before 
him,  had  in  like  manner  analyzed  the  law  and  resolved 
its  varied  requirements  into  the  one  great  principle  of 
Love ;  Love  supreme  to  the  Supreme  God,  and  to  our 
fellow  an  equitable  love,  equal  to  that  cherished  by  us 
for  ourselves. 

*  1  Peter  iv.  8.  f  1  Timo.  i.  5. 

X  Romans  xiii.  10.  §  Galat.  r.  13,  14. 


210  RELIGIOUS    PROGRESS. 

2.  But  as  if  to  guard  against  all  possibility  of  any  de. 
rogatory  inferences, — as  though  love  came  in  rank  after 
faith,  or  as  though  it  were  a  mere  separate  appendage, 
without  which  saving  faith  might  exist, — the  Holy 
Ghost,  which  in  our  text  has  ranged  it  last,  has  in  other 
passages  enumerated  it  as  the  first  of  the  graces  that 
combine  in  one  harmonious  group,  to  constitute  chris- 
tian character.  So  Paul  in  his  letter  to  the  G-alatians, 
and  in  that  same  portion  of  it  just  quoted,  in  indicating 
the  cluster  of  graces  and  virtues  that  the  Spirit  pro- 
duces, says :  "  The  fruit  of  the  Spirit  is  Love,  joy, 
peace."*  So  when  Christ  describes  true  piety,  as  in 
the  darker  and  perilous  days  of  the  Christian  Church 
it  should  suffer  eclipse  and  decline,  he  sums  up  that 
piety  in  this  one  sanctified  affection :  "  The  love  of 
many  shall  wax  cold."t  And  Paul,  on  the  other 
hand,  when  painting  his  own  character,  and  stating 
the  radical  principle  of  all  his  lofty  services  and  costly 
sacrifices,  indicates  this :  "  The  love  of  Christ  con- 
straineth  us."  X  And  when  writing  to  the  Hebrews, 
he  gives  it  a  station  and  rank  before  all  other  good 
works  :  "  Let  us  consider  one  another  to  provoke  unto 
love  and  to  good  works."  §  And  Jude,  when  delineat- 
ing the  disasters  and  snares  of  an  evil  time,  bids 
Christians  hold  to  this,  for  their  safeguard,  and  the 
talisman  of  their  spiritual  life:  "Keep  yourselves  in 
the  love  of  Grod."  II  The  text,  then'  in  itfe  order  of  the 
various  graces  of  the  true  Christian,  does  not  give 
their  chronology  in  the  renewed  heart,  or  the  order 

*  Galat.  V.  22.  f  Matt.  xxiv.  12.  %  2  Coria  v.  14. 

§  Hebrews  x.  24.  ||  Jude  21. 


CHARITY.  211 

of  time  in  which  they  spring  to  birth.  The  regenerate 
soul  loves  God  in  the  first  pulsations  of  his  new-found 
spiritual  life  ;  and  gratitude  to  the  Redeemer  who  has 
bought  him,  prompts,  early  and  continually,  all  his 
acts  of  obedience  to  God,  and  all  his  acts  of  kindly 
service  to  his  fellow-man. 

3.  But  how  is  it  related  to,  and  distinguished  from 
brotherly  kindness  ?  "We  endeavored,  then,  in  our  last 
lecture,  to  show  how  Christ  creates  in  his  church  of  the 
regenerate  a  new  spiritual  brotherhood,  and  to  show 
how  this,  though  overriding,  did  not  efface  and  extin- 
guish an  earlier  and  natural  brotherhood,  combining 
together,  in  one  confraternity,  those  who  were  espe- 
cially near  and  dear  to  us  by  the  ties  of  friendship, 
kindred,  and  country.  The  principle  of  brotherly 
kindness,  we  supposed,  was  to  find  its  scope  in  these 
two  regions, — the  sphere  of  the  Christian,  or  spiritual 
fraternity,  and  the  sphere  of  worldly,  or  natural  broth- 
erhood. But  are  there  none  of  our  fellow- men  found 
even  beyond  these  spheres  ?  Ancient  Paganism,  indeed, 
scarce  recognized  the  rights  of  such  dwellers  beyond 
the  charmed  circle  of  country  and  home,  to  any  sympa- 
thy. In  the  old  Roman  tongue,  the  word  for  stranger 
and  that  for  enemy  were  originally  one,  and,  in  the 
ancient  British  laws,  the  alien  wrecked  on  their  shores 
was  regarded  as  bearing  a  forfeited  life,  and  as  being 
one  that  the  first  native  who  should  meet  him  might 
butcher.  Their  hapless  guest,  made  such  by  calamity, 
was  to  be  their  victim.  Even  Judaism,  by  its  prin- 
ciples of  isolation,  (the  fitting  principles  for  the  preser- 
vation of  Divine  Truth  when  that  truth  was  yet  a 


212  RELIGIOUS     PROGRESS. 

deposit  to  be  guarded,  rather  than  a  message  to  be 
published,)  was  a  dispensation  which  led  many  of  its 
votaries  to  shut  up  their  hopes  within  the  sea-coast  and 
mountains  of  Palestine.  Christianity  came  to  lift  off 
from  the  human  heart  the  narrow  horizon  of  the  coun- 
try and  the  household,  and  the  church,  far  as  they 
crushed  and  confined  that  heart;  and  to  enjoin  not 
only  sympathy  and  regard  for  the  friend,  but  for  the 
enemy ;  not  only  for  the  kinsman,  but  for  the  stran- 
ger ;  not  only  for  the  countryman,  but  for  the  alien ; 
not  only  for  the  fellow-disciple  in  Christ's  church,  but 
it  taught  even  the  deeply- wronged  martyr,  forgiveness 
and  prayer,  for  the  persecutors  that  hated  and  wasted 
Grod's  heritage  and  church.  And  the  love  or  charity, 
thus  broad  in  its  wide  horizon  of  human  sympathies, 
was  derived  from  love  and  likeness  to  that  Saviour 
whose  expiring  breath  remembered  his  murderers.  It 
was  a  love  for  the  two-fold  family  of  Grod  :  the  family 
of  mankind,  of  whom  it  is  said,  and  "  We  are  all  his 
children ;"  and  the  family  of  Christ,  all  named  from 
Him  their  one  Elder  Brother.  A  true,  though  not  a 
like  regard,  to  each  of  these  two  households, — the  one 
the  lineage  of  the  first  Adam,  the  other  the  household 
of  faith,  and  the  lineage  of  the  second  Adam, — is  re- 
quired of  all  Christ's  followers,  as  based  on  love  to 
the  common  Father  and  Creator  of  that  two-fold 
household. 

But  the  chief  distinction  between  the  preceding 
grace  of  Brotherly  Kindness,  and  the  crowning  grace 
of  Charity,  yet  remains  to  be  stated.  Whilst  the  for- 
mer regards  mainly  the  principle  of  fraternal  obliga- 


CHARITY.  213 

tion  to  human  nature,  the  latter  finds  its  chiefest  scope, 
and  its  highest  object,  in  the  filial  ties  binding  man 
to  his  Father  and  God.  Whilst  the  earlier  grace 
bows  down  over  the  second  table  of  the  two  given  on 
Sinai,  that  bearing  on  its  face  man's  duties  to  his 
neighbor ;  the  later,  and  nobler  and  mightier  grace, 
stoops  intently  over  both,  but  fixes  its  regard,  most 
and  longest,  on  that  first  table,  the  weightier  of  the 
two,  whore  stand  inscribed  man's  vast  obligations  of 
love,  homage,  and  fealty  to  his  Maker  and  Judge. 
And  as  Faith,  the  first  named  of  all  this  choir  of  sis- 
ter excellencies,  has  its  home  and  aim  in  Heaven,  and 
fastens  on  the  Veracity  of  the  God  of  Heaven,  as  its 
warrant  and  sustenance  ;  so  Love,  the  last  named  asso- 
ciate in  the  same  band,  knits  hands  with  Faith,  in  find- 
ing, also,  its  chiefest  aim  and  its  chosen  home  in  Heaven, 
attaching  itself  to  the  Excellency  and  Loveliness  of 
the  Divine  Character,  as  does  Faith  to  the  Divine 
Truthfulness.  Wlien  the  Psalmist  described  the  harmo- 
ny of  the  attributes  of  the  Godhead  in  man's  wondrous 
redemption,  he  saw  Mercy  and  Truth  met  together.* 
When  the  twain  descended  earthward,  Truth  found 
shelter  in  the  home  of  Faith,  and  Mercy  was  lodo-ed 
in  the  abode  and  heart  of  Love,  or  Charity,  as  she  is 
variously  called.  Gratitude,  and  paramount  love  to 
God,  coalesce,  therefore,  with  love  to  man,  in  the  es- 
sence of  Christian  Charity.  And  as  God  is  before 
man  in  existence,  and  above  man  in  worth  and  rio^hts, 
attachment  to  Him  is  the  predominant  element  of 
this  grace.     The  Love  of  God  subordinates  and  regu- 

*   Ps.  IXESV.  10. 


214  RELIGIOUS     PROGRESS. 

lates  all  the  outgoings  of  attachment  in  the  renewed 
heart. 

II.  We  have  thus  prepared  the  way  to  discuss  the 
true  nature  of  Christian  Charity,  as  distinguished  from 
the  semblances  that  usurp  wrongfully  its  titles  and 
honors.  It  is  not,  then,  as  the  popular  usage  of  the  word 
would  often  make  it, — bare  almsgiving.  This  the  Phar- 
isees practised  with  sound  of  the  trumpet  and  at  the 
corners  of  the  streets,  and  yet  had  not  true  love  either  to 
Grod  or  man.  And  Paul  declares  it  possible  to  give  all 
our  goods  to  the  poor — not  merely  the  tithe  of  the 
field,  or  the  prunings  of  the  vine,  but  the  entire  vin- 
tage of  our  means,  to  feed  the  impoverished ;  and  yet 
to  lack  true  charity.  When  Romanism,  then,  teaches, 
as  in  some  ages  she  has  done,  that  bounty,  in  the 
form  of  large  endowments  for  alms,  might  atone  for 
sin,  and  was  evangelical  charity,  the  teaching  was 
in  plain  oblivion  or  contradiction  of  an  apostle's  testi- 
mony. It  was  virtually  Simony,  proposing  to  purchase 
Heaven  with  silver  and  gold;  an  endeavor  which, 
when  made  on  the  part  of  Simon  Magus,  was  so 
sternly  denounced  and  rejected.  And  as  the  poor-box, 
though  our  bounties  should  fill  it,  cannot  contain  all  of 
a  true  Christian's  charity  :  so,  neither  is  this  grace, 
as  some  other  forms  of  error  teach,  a  mere  magnani- 
mous disregard  of  all  doctrinal  variances,  and  a  fond 
and  baseless  assurance  that  all  forms  of  faith  are,  if 
sincere,  equally  acceptable  to  God — and  that  He  who 
is  on  high,  hears,  with  equal  regard,  the  praises  that 
go  up  to  Him  as  the  Jehovah  of  the  Christian  Scrip- 
tures, and  as  the  Juggernaut  of  Hindoo  shrines  of  de- 


CHARITY. 


215 


filement  and  butchery.  No  :  the  charity  of  the  Scrip- 
tures loves  the  True  God  ;  and  as  He  is  the  God  of 
Truth,  it  loves,  ardently  and  without  compromise,  His 
truth — pure  and  one,  and  unmitigated  and  unadul- 
terated. Nor  is  evangelical  charity  connivance  with 
sin.  "  Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbor,  and  not  suffer 
sin  upon  him,  but  in  any  wise  rebuke  it,"  said  the 
law.  "When  Eli  dozed  over  this  forgotten  canon,  and 
left  the  iniquity  of  his  sons  uncorrected,  God  awoke 
to  vengeance,  and  the  curse,  long  hovering,  came 
down  heavily  on  his  descendants,  in  the  day  when  the 
sword  of  Doeg  devastated  Nob,  the  city  of  the  priests, 
bereaving  it  of  all  its  inhabitants.  The  seraphim  be- 
fore the  throne  flame  with  the  love  of  God.  But  their 
charity,  when  they  came  down,  the  commissioned  mes- 
sengers of  Heaven  to  the  cities  of  the  plain,  was  not 
Indifference  to  Sin,     It  was  fiery  Vengeance. 

"  Charity  rejoiceth  not  in  iniquity,  but  rejoiceth  in 
the  truth,"  is  Paul's  language  in  his  matchless  portrai- 
ture of  this  grace.  And,  as  in  the  nature  of  God,  love 
to  truth  and  holiness,  is  an  attribute,  having  as  its  op- 
posite pole,  hatred  to  falsehood  and  unholiness  ;  so,  in 
holy  David,  and  in  each  other  true  servant  of  God,  the 
love  of  piety  is  necessarily  detestation  of  impiety,  and 
hatred  for  the  workers  of  iniquity — not  indeed  detes- 
tation of  their  persons  and  souls,  but  of  their  practices, 
and  principles,  and  influences.  Paul,  thepefore,  has 
his  Anathema  Maran-atha  for  those  not  loving  Christ. 
He  loves  what  God  loves,  and  as  God  loves  it ;  and, 
as  the  love  of  God  in  Christ  becomes  the  wrath  of 
God  against  those  rejecting  Christ,  so,  the  charity  of 


216  *RELIGIOUS     PROGRESS. 

true  godliness  is  terrible,  as  well  as  lovely.  It  does 
not  persecute  ;  it  does  not  imprecate.  It  compassion- 
ates, and  intercedes,  and  warns ;  but  when  G-od's 
mercy  is  exhausted,  and  the  misspent  term  of  proba- 
tion closes  in  sudden  and  lasting  night,  charity  breathes 
its  A  men  to  the  edict  and  sentence,  as  it  goes  forth  from 
the  lips  of  the  Holy  and  the  Good, — bidding  that  his  ene- 
mies go  into  the  exile  which  they  have  chosen,  and  in- 
herit the  ruin  and  perdition,  deep  and  endless,  which 
they  have  willingly  and  laboriously  earned. 

For,  the  charity  of  the  Scriptures  is,  first,  love  to  Grod, 
the  Creator  and  Source  of  all  goodness, — to  the  good 
amongst  men,  as  bearing  his  regenerate  image, — and  to 
the  evil  of  our  race  yet  on  the  earth,  as  bearing  still  the 
marred  image  of  God,  given  in  creation,  but  defaced 
in  the  Fall,  and  which  may  yet  be  created  anew,  in 
holiness,  and  righteousness,  and  truth.  To  the  unre- 
newed, its  love  is  that  which  we  might  imagine  a 
friend  to  bear  to  the  child,  long  lost,  and  far  wandering, 
of  some  friend's  household,  whom  he  finds  disguised 
in  tatters,  and  corrupted  in  morals,  among  the  strangers 
who  have  stolen  him.  It  is  a  charity,  that  seeks  to 
reclaim  and  restore  ;  that  is  not  content  with  present 
degradation  and  estrangement,  but  seeks  to  win  the 
prodigal  from  his  captors,  and  to  consign  him  again  to 
a  Father's  home  and  training. 

It  is,  then,  not  irreligious,  nor  indifferent  to  all  doc- 
trine, nor  careless  of  revealed  truth  ;  but,  on  the  con- 
trary, springs  from,  and  clings  to,  the  truth  as  God  re- 
veals it.  It  is,  as  Paul  so  significantly  paints  it, 
"  Charity,  out  of  a  pure  heart,  and  of  a  good  con- 


CHARITY.  217 

jwience,  and  of  faith  unfeigned."  The  world  would, 
on  the  other  hand,  confound  with  this  evangelical 
grace,  i  spurious  charity,  that  germinates  from  a  heart 
not  pure,  a  conscience  not  made  good  by  the  righteous- 
ness of  Christ ;  a  counterfeit  charity,  that,  instead  of 
proceeding  from  "  faith  unfeigned,"  fraternizes  with 
"  faith  derided  and  blasphemed ;"  and  that,  instead  of 
"  rejoicing  in  the  truth,"  simpers  over  error,  and  smiles 
complacently  on  the  falsehoods  that  delude  the  world, 
that  would  discrown  Christ,  and  people  Tophet. 

Such,  then,  is  Charity, — the  love  of  the  Father,  and, 
in  Him,  of  his  creatures,  embracing  especially  those 
that  love  Him,  and  resemble  Him  ;  but  also  extending 
its  kindnesses,  like  that  Father,  "  to  the  unthankful  and 
the  evil,"  for  he  sendeth  his  rain  upon,  and  doeth  good 
to,  "  the  just  and  the  unjust." 

HI.  And  now,  let  us  dwell  upon  some  of  the  fruits,- 
which  Christian  Charity  (thus  exalted  in  its  place 
among  the  graces,  and  thus  distinguished  from  the 
counterfeits  and  forgeries  which  would  borrow  its  name.) 
might,  and  should  display  in  the  field  of  human  society 
in  the  nineteenth  century.  Its  root  is,  then,  in  another 
world.  It  is,  first,  filial  towards  G-od  ;  and  then,  frater- 
nal towards  man,  as  the  creature  of  G-od.  G-ushing 
from  the  Spirit  of  God,  as  received  by  the  believer  on 
the  Son  of  God,  and  guided  by  the  Scriptures  of  God, 
it  flows  forth  over  the  race.  As  Hooker  beautifully 
says  of  this  charity  :  "  The  final  object  of  which  is, 
that  incomprehensible  beauty,  which  shineth  in  the 
countenance  of  Christ,  the  Son  of  the  living  God." 
Basking  in  that  light,  it  beams  its  reflected  glory  on  the 

10 


218  RELIGIOUS     PROGRESS, 

race  whom  Christ  came  to  ransom,  and  to  enlighten. 
And,  as  "  good-will  to  ?new"  was  proclaimed  by  angels 
in  announcing  his  birth,  the  banners  of  the  gospel  and 
the  church  bear  that  glorious  motto  to  the  end  of  time. 

Over  the  barriers,  then,  that  hedge  around  the 
regions  of  spiritual  brotherhood  in  the  church,  and  of 
natural  brotherhood,  in  friends,  families,  and  nations, 
this  charity  finds  its  unchecked  course ;  and  it  is  not 
indifferent  to  the  distant,  or  the  degraded,  the  unlovely 
and  the  ungrateful  of  the  race.  .Human  nature  left  to 
itself  has  much  of  the  spirit  of  the  clan.  It  would 
husband  the  golden  talent  of  its  sympathies,  and " 
wrapping  them  in  the  napkin  of  caste,  or  sect,  or  tribe 
or  country,  bury  them  to  prevent  their  being  lost  or 
worn  away,  by  rude  attrition,  by  going  forth  into  the 
open  market  of  the  world.  True  Christianity  does  not, 
on  the  one  hand,  with  a  false  cosmopolitanism,  once 
so  fashionable,  proclaim  utter  disregard  to  the  claims 
of  the  nation  and  the  home.  It  honors  the  domestic 
charities,  the  ties  of  kin,  and  the  love  of  country,  and 
the  fond  attachment  of  those  like-minded  in  Christ, 
and  set  for  the  defence  and  diffusion  of  the  same  great 
truths.  But,  rising  above  these  limits,  it  shows  on  the 
other  hand,  a  true  citizenship  of  the  world,  by  hailing 
the  needy,  and  the  wicked  even,  as  the  subjects  of  its 
sympathies,  and  of  its  restoring  tenderness,  and  of  its 
availing  and  unceasing  intercession. 

Much  has,  in  our  times,  been  said,  and  not  unprofit- 
ably,  of  the  distinctions  physical  and  moral,  which 
mark  the  several  races  into  which  Providence  has  per- 
mitted the  descendants  of  one  Adam  and  one  Noah  to 


CHARITY.  219 

be  separated.  These  races  have  their  marked  peculi- 
arities. But  it  is  a  selfish  and  unchristian  feeling 
that  would  dwell  on  the  peculiar  and  divisive  features, 
to  the  forgetfulness  of  the  more  numerous  and  more 
important  features,  in  which  all, — the  Grreek  and  the 
Barbarian, — the  Celt  and  the  Saxon, — the  white  and 
the  black, — are  alike  ;  manifesting  a  community  in  sin, 
and  condemnation,  and  susceptible  of  a  common  and 
effectual  recovery  by  the  one  great  remedy.  And 
especially  does  it  seem  unsuitable,  to  lay  earnest 
emphasis,  and  an  impassioned  stress,  on  these  differ- 
ences of  national  descent  in  Christian  America.  In  a 
land,  whose  ancestral  colonists  were  the  emigrants  of 
so  many  various  races — and  whose  Continental  Con- 
gress,'in  the  war  of  their  emancipation,  met  in  a  city 
dedicated,  by  the  name  which  its  founder  had  bor- 
rowed from  the  New  Testament,  to  the  memory  of 
"  brotherly  kindness,"* — it  seems  unfitting,  that  the 
varieties  of  our  lineage  and  ancestral  stock  should  be 
made  an  argument  for  alienation  and  discord.  Our 
colonial  history  and  multiform  origin  seem  rather  a 
protest,  as  by  anticipation,  on  the  part  of  Providence, 
against  aught  which  would  part  the  Celt  and  the 
Saxon,  or  the  Norseman  and  the  Roman.  In  that 
variegated  original,  God  seems  to  have  pledged  us 
to  a  wider  sympathy  ; — to  a  charity  broad  as  the 
waters  which  our  colonist  forefathers  crossed,  and 
coextensive  with  all  the  climes  where  they  had  found 
their  natal  seats.  But,  besides  these  divisive  tenden- 
cies, in  the  diversified  lines  of  our  descent,  there 
*  Philadelphia. 


220  RELIGIOUS     PROGRESS. 

are  personal  causes  of  isolation  in  our  infirmities  and 
sins,  as  well  as  in  our  varied  education  and  tastes. 
We  find  it  hard  to  keep  the  milk  of  human  kindness 
uncurdled,  when  there  is  poured  upon  it  ingratitude,  or 
contempt,  or  injustice.  To  love  the  unamiable,  and  to 
feel  a  sustained  interest  in  the  brutish  and  degraded, 
is  difficult  except  to  confirmed  and  Christlike  piety. 
An  Eastern  missionary,  eminent  for  devotedness,  once 
spoke  frankly  of  the  difficulty  he  found  in  repressing 
disgust  at  the  personal  filthiness  of  the  forlorn  and  de- 
graded Pagans,  with  whom  his  missionary  toils  must 
daily  associate  him.  And  when  wickedness  becomes  fu- 
rious, and  Persecution  repays  with  death  the  bearers  of 
the  word  of  life,  can  aught  less  than  a  Divine  principle 
keep  alive  in  the  martyr  and  the  martyr's  friends,  love 
and  compassion  for  those  who  hate  the  truth,  malign 
its  friends,  and  would  fain  tread  into  the  funeral  ashes 
of  their  victim  the  faith  which  he  professed  ?  Distance, 
and  Dissonance,  and  Degradation,  and  Barbarism,  and 
Persecution,  how  do  they  tend  to  cut  off"  the  currents 
of  christian  sympathy,  and  to  chill  the  warmth  of  the 
heart  once  glowing  with  kindness,  and  to  smite,  as 
with  ague  and  palsy,  the  outstretched  and  ministering 
hands  of  christian  diligence  and  tenderness. 

But,  over  all  these  adverse  tendencies,  Charity 
tvipmphs  by  the  grace  of  Christ,  and  continues  seek- 
ing the  good,  temporal  and  spiritual,  of  those  whose 
obdurate  insensibility  maligns  and  spurns  her  kindest 
offices. 

1.  And,  first,  let  us,  among  the  appropriate  fruits  of 
"hristian  Charity,  enumerate  Foreign  Missions.     The 


CHARITY.  221 

Home  Missions  of  the  church  were,  in  our  last  lecture, 
the  subject  of  allusion,  as  being  demanded  by  the  laws 
of  human  brotherhood,  in  our  obligations  binding  us  to 
our  neighbor  and  to  our  common  country.  But,  as  to 
those  more  remote,  and  the  inhabitants  of  other  lands, 
which  are  burnt  by  the  tropical  sun  or  glazed  by  the 
eternal  ices  of  the  Pole ;  owe  we  nothing  to  them  ? 
Christ,  our  brother,  and  the  brother,  as  the  second  Adam, 
of  the  entire  race,  said  as  He  paused,  with  his  face  yet 
turned  earthward,  whilst  His  form  already  mounted 
heavenward ;  "  Go  ye  out  into  all  the  world  and 
preach  the  gospel  to  every  creature,  and  lo,  I  am 
with  you."  Against  such  a  charge  and  such  a  pledge, 
what  avail  all  the  objections,  and  excuses,  and  doubts, 
of  those  who  disparage  the  modern  missionary  enter- 
prises of  the  Church  ?  Shall  we  live  upon  Him,  and  in 
Him,  and  yet  refuse  to  obey  Him  ?  Trust  we  in  the 
pledge  of  His  presence  to  the  world's  end,  and  yet  do 
we  hesitate  to  follow  His  leadings  to  the  remote,  the 
uncouth,  and  the  barbarous  ?  Some  deride  the  work, 
under  the  plea,  that  it  is  all  sheer  hypociisy  to  profess 
sympathy,  and  gather  contributions,  for  the  idolater  of 
the  Antipodes,  whilst  here  are  shivering  around  us,  the 
untaught  and  unfed,  the  ignorant  and  destitute, — the 
heathen  of  our  own  christian  homes.  The  one  work, 
indeed,  should  not  be  left  undone ;  but,  should  we 
never  go  forth  to  the  Karen,  whilst  a  hamlet  or  family 
remained  yet  unconverted  in  these  United  States? 
Then  we  might  never  go.  For  we  suppose,  that  even 
Millennial  times  do  not  imply  the  conversion  of  every 
individual  then  tenanting  the  earth,  here  or  in  other 


222  RELIGIOUS     PROGRESS. 

lands.  The  principle  of  such  an  objection  would  have 
forbidden  David  to  compose  one  psalm  for  the  great 
congregation,  long  as  there  was  left  in  his  own  house- 
hold, and  beneath  his  roof,  one  unregenerate  Absalom. 
Others  murmur,  that  our  missionaries  carry  to  the 
heathen  metaphysical  doctrines  instead  of  practical 
lessons,  and  that  they  would  Christianize  where  they 
ought  first  to  civilize  them.  But  all  experience  has 
shown,  that  the  readiest  and  surest — and  in  fact,  the 
only  ready  and  sure — way  to  civilize  the  savage,  is  to 
awaken  by  the  truths  of  the  gospel,  and  by  its  visions  of 
eternal  realities, — to  awaken  hopes  and  aspirations,  that 
will  fnake  a  change,  in  his  temporal  condition,  seem  to 
that  barbarian  both  desirable  and  possible.  And  if  the 
doctrines  be,  as  you  term  them,  metaphysical ;  so  is 
patriotism  ;  so  is  truth;  so  is  your  own  individuality, 
and  your  conscience,  and  your  reason, — metaphysical. 
The  G^od,  who  made  the  soul  else  than  mere  brute  mat- 
ter, made  the  doctrines,  that  shall  pierce  and  renovate 
that  soul,  something  more  than  those  material  and 
physical  truths,  which  you  may  tell  on  the  fingers.  As 
to  waste  of  time,  in  communicating  these  great  spiritual 
facts  to  the  heathen ;  it  is  no  more  a  waste,  than  the 
roots  of  the  tree  are  wasted  and  lost  to  it, — or  the  secret 
foundations  of  a  house,  idle  expenditures  to  the  builder 
and  tenant, — because  they  are  both  under  the  ground. 
Your  tree  cannot  have  fruit  or  branches  ;  nor  can  your 
house  stand  against  the  wintry  storms,  without  these 
sunken  supports.  And  so  the  practical  reforms  which 
you  require  in  the  savage,  must  rest  on  these  princi- 
vles  of  truth, — metaphysical  as  you  choose   to   call 


CHARITY. 


223 


them,  but  revealed  as  we  believe  them, — tliat,  rooted 
in  the  hidden  soil  of  the  heart,  bear  up  the  hal)its,  and 
fruits,  and  framework  'of  the  outer  life.  But  the 
objector  has  heard  from  some  tenth  transmitter  of  an 
uncertain  rumor,  that  your  missionaries  are  luxuriating 
in  ease  and  princely  splendor.  If  it  be  so,  why  are 
not  more  going  out  to  share  the  spoil  ?  But,  is  it  so  ? 
Look  at  Williams,  dying  by  cannibal  violence  in  the 
South  Pacific.  See  Jonas  King  threatened  but  recently 
with  death  by  the  violence  of  the  rabble  in  Republican 
Greece.  Read  the  story  of  the  massacre  of  Whitman 
among  the  ferocjpus  savages  of  Oregon  ;  and  call  you 
such  sacrifices  as  these, — a  living  in  ease,  and  splendor  : 
and  dare  you  impeach  the  martyr,  of  being  but  an  im- 
postor, who  subsists  luxuriously  on  the  gifts  of  the 
credulous  ?  No.  The  day  has  gone  by  for  such  re- 
proaches. Science,  Commerce,  and  Freedom,  all  re- 
joice in  the  fruits  of  Foreign  Missions.  The  Sandwich 
and  the  Society  Islands  are  comparatively  renovated. 
India's  old  idolatry  totters.  China  has  flung,  reluc- 
tantly, the  gates  of  her  vast  prison-house  open  to  the 
feet  of  these  pilgrim  heralds  of  Charity,  the  mis- 
sionaries of  the  Cross.     The  world  is  their  debtor. 

2.  But  how  shall  we  resist,  there  and  in  the  home 
field,  the  rivalry  of  Romish  error,  and  other  forms  of 
grave  delusion?  Charity,  here  too,  has  her  scope.  She 
must  defend  the  truth  and  scatter  it ;  but  she  may  not 
persecute,  however  persecuted.  She  may  rightfully  ask 
in  other  lands  the  general  toleration  which  she  yields 
here.  She  may  protest  against  the  butcheries  of  the 
Inquisition,  and  the  terrors  of  proscription  and  exile 


224  RELIGIOUS     PROGRESS. 

which  Rome,  in  various  laws,  imposes  on  those  con- 
verted from  her.  So,  against  each  form  of  religious 
delusion,  like  Mormonism, — against  a  rampant  infidel- 
ity like  that  of  Paine, — or  a  lambent  and  concealed 
scepticism  like  the  philosophical  liberalism  of  the 
times, — the  Charity  of  Truth  may  and  must  witness, 
frankly  and  fearlessly ;  but  without  hatred  of  the  de- 
luded, without  railing,  and  without  revengefulness. 
The  Christian  Church,  and  the  synagogue  of  Satan,  mis- 
calling itself  also  the  church  of  Jesus,  cannot  symbolize 
together  ;  but,  the  weapons  of  the  inevitable  warfare 
must  be  spiritual,  and  be  wielded  in  Jove  and  prayer. 

3.  From  the  victims  of  religious  error,  we  pass  next 
to  the  victims  of  want.  Pauperism  is  a  vast  and  com- 
plex theme.  Some  of  the  theories  for  its  removal  de- 
mand most  grave  changes,  and  social  revolutions  more 
thorough  than  any  political  revolution  at  which  the 
nations  have  stood  aghast.  We  believe  it  true,  and 
that  christian  thinkers  will  yet  generally  admit,  that 
the  Political  Economy  even  of  christian  nations,  needs 
to  be  converted  and  baptized  from  its  present  irreli- 
gious state ;  that  the  great  principle  of  "Let  alone," 
which  many  have  proclaimed  as  a  First  Truth  in  Politi- 
cal Economy,  is  in  some  of  its  applications  to  the  ac- 
cumulation and  distribution  of  wealth,  and  to  the  re- 
lief of  the  impoverished  and  proletary  classes,  "  a  First 
Lie,"  that  must  be  recanted,  if  there  is  to  be  safety 
for  governments,  or  union  and  cohesion  and  sympathy 
in  the  various  classes  of  the  nation.  It  is,  as  some  use 
it,  but  a  metaphysical  statement  of  Cain's  argument : 
^' Am  I  my  brother's  keeper?"     We  believe  that  the 


CHARITY.  22d 

notion  that  wealth  is  in  itself  prosperity,  and  that  cap- 
ital has  no  other  duties  than  self-preservation  and  ac- 
cumulation, are  unchristian  errors ;  and  that  wealth 
needs  other  guards  and  restraints  than  it  can  buy,  to 
he  either  safe  for  its  owner  or  a  blessing  to  society. 

But,  on  the  other  hand,  it  seems  plain  that  some  of 
the  remedies  proposed  for  the  removal  of  Poverty  are 
chimerical  and  ruinous.  Far  as  the  Socialists  and 
Communists  of  our  time  would  obliterate  the  family, 
they  seek  to  abolish  a  law  of  God  which  cannot  be  sac- 
rificed, without  the  wreck  of  Happiness,  and  Order, 
and  Virtue.  Far,  again,  as  they  teach  men  to  over- 
look moral  in  their  attention  to  material  and  phi/sical 
wants,  they  wrong  and  degrade  human  nature,  and 
must  miss  the  happiness  which  they  undertake  to 
guaranty.  For  even  a  king  on  his  throne — an  Alfred 
amid  fame  and  power  and  wealth, — needs  something 
more  than  these  earthly  and  transient  goods,  for  the 
enjoyment  of  true  happiness.  He  needs,  as  that  great 
king  confessed,  pardon  for  sin,  and  hope  in  death,  and 
a  home  in  the  eternal  world.  And  if  even  monarchs 
need  these,  how  much  more  does  the  poor  man,  amid 
his  sufferings.  If  you  fed  and  gorged  him  with  the 
fullest  supply  of  his  bodily  wants,  and  left  him  with 
a,  burdened  conscience,  a  Saviour  unknown,  and  Heav. 
en  missed,  he  would  be  but  a  wretched  and  brutisl 
Sybarite  amid  your  plenty.  The  true  Reformer  musi 
still,  as  Christianity  does,  look  first  to  the  soul  and  iti 
wants  ;  and  in  relieving  man,  the  fallen  and  discrown- 
ed king,  remember  his  former  glory  in  holiness,  and 
seek  its  restoration. 

10* 


226  REx^IGIOUS     PROGRESS. 

But,  on  the  other  hand,  christian  charity  requires 
that  the  body  should  not  be  overlooked.  Christ  him- 
self, while  his  first  care  was  the  Bread  of  Heaven  for 
the  immortal  mind,  cared  for  and  wrought  miracles  to 
feed  the  hungering  body,  healed  corporeal  disease,  and 
amid  the  tremendous  and  absorbing  agonies  of  a 
world's  atonement,  this,  the  Redeemer  of  the  world 
took  thought,  even  on  the  cross,  to  secure  for  his  be- 
reaved mother  the  earthly  comforts  of  a  home.  It  is 
not  christian  then,  in  our  attention  to  the  soul,  to 
jverlook  utterly  all  provision  for  the  wants  of  the 
Dodily  frame  that  shelters  this  soul. 

As  to  the  proposal  to  abolish  the  household,  we  be- 
lieve that  the  yearnings  of  humanity,  and  the  law  of 
our  Maker,  have  made  the  family  as  much  a  matter  of 
Qecessity  as  is  gravitation  to  the  body.  The  mind 
and  heart  morally  gravitate  towards  the  household, 
and  its  isolation,  and  its  repose,  and  you  cannot  extir- 
pate and  strip  off  this  moral  necessity.  As  to  the  pro- 
posed communities,  we  do  not  see  how  they  could 
avoid,  within  them  and  around  them,  the  necessary 
destruction  of  individual  independence.  Those  who 
would  prefer  separate  and  independent  labor,  would 
find  themselves  crushed  by  the  competition  of  the  com- 
munity ;  whilst  the  community  could  not  keep  its 
members  active  and  diligent  unless  despotic  power  re- 
sided in  its  chief,  trampling  down  the  independent  ac- 
tion of  the  several  dwellers  in  his  domain.  Again, 
were  society  all  so  gathered  into  communities,  we  see 
no  possible  provision  for  destroying  inequality,  compe- 
tition, and  animosity  as  among  these  several  groupes 


CHARITY. 


227 


or  communities.  They  could  not  be  all  alike  pros- 
perous, and  content,  supposing  that  any  of  them  wore 
so.  It  seems  to  us  a  surrender  of  personal  freedom, 
and  a  wild  endeavor  to  evade  the  inevitable  and 
achieve  the  impossible.  Inequality  and  emulation  are 
inseparable  froTi  individuality,  and  any  attempt  to 
remove  them,  on  the  principle  of  the  Community  or 
Phalanstery,  seems  to  us  as  hopeless  as  would  be  the 
attempt,  to  unlock  the  moon  from  its  inferiority  and 
dependence  upon  the  earth  and  sun ;  or  like  an  en- 
deavor to  create  perfect  equality  of  splendor  among 
those  starry  worlds,  which  the  will  of  their  Maker 
formed  unequal,  "  for  one  star  difTereth  from  another 
star  in  glory." 

4.  We  would  observe,  again,  on  the  bearings  of 
Christian  Charity  on  the  repression  of  Crime,  and  the 
reformation  of  the  criminal.  "We  believe,  that  all  or- 
thodox Christianity  has  been  greatly  maligned,  by 
some  now  active  in  the  amendment  of  the  vicious, 
and  the  amelioration  of  the  criminal  code.  The  initi- 
ative was  given,  and  the  superiority  in  devotedness 
and  usefulness  has  been  always  retained,  by  evangeli- 
cal Christians.  John  Howard,  and  Elizabeth  Fry,  and 
the  humbler  name  of  Sarah  Martin,  less  famous,  but 
not  less  devoted,  may  be  quoted  as  proving  this.  But 
the  views  of  some,  who  would  fain  persuade  the 
prisoner  that  all  his  crimes  are  either  the  fault  of  so- 
ciety, or  the  result  of  his  own  cerebral  organization, 
and  that  he  is  therefore  more  the  subject  of  compas- 
sion than  punishment,  are  most  erroneous  in  principle, 
and  have  already  borne  their  baleful  fruits.     Let  us 


228  RELIGIOUS     PROGRESS. 

pity  our  fallen  brother,  but  in  playing  the  good  Samar- 
itan, we  need  not  flatter  him.  Crime  is  not  misfor- 
tune or  fate.  It  is  voluntary  transgression,  and  self- 
chosen,  self-created  guilt ;  and  as  such  must  be 
repressed.  To  make  the  penal  code  as  little  sanguinary, 
as  will  consist  with  the  safety  of  society,  and  the  sanc- 
tity of  human  life,  we  suppose  to  be  required  by  the 
benevolence  of  the  gospel.  But,  the  abolition  of  all 
capital  punishment,  and  the  denial  of  right  to  war  in 
any  case  whatever,  are  not  to  our  minds  scriptural 
truths.  Crime  needs  the  governor,  and  banded  crime, 
if  not  otherwise  to  be  subjugated,  needs  war  to  sub- 
due it.  What  the  reading  of  the  Riot  Act  is  to  a 
British  mob,  such  we  suppose  the  declaration  of  war 
for  sufficient  cause,  to  be  to  a  nation — a  resort  sanc- 
tioned by  the  law  of  Heaven,  and  indispensable  to  the 
existence  of  human  government,  when  all  other  reme- 
edies  fail.  Christian  charity  will  abolish  war,  by  les- 
sening in  the  hearts  of  individuals  the  love  of  wrong, 
that  if  found  pervading  multitudes  makes  war  neces- 
sary. But,  that  war  is  in  itself  unchristian  and  sinful, 
we  dare  not  say,  when  our  Bibles  say  of  the  very 
Founder  of  Christianity  :  "In  faithfulness  doth  He 
judge  and  make  war."  If  war  be  sin,  this  is  the 
blasphemous  absurdity  of  saying,  in  effect,  "  In  faith- 
fulness doth  the  sinless  and  Holy  One  sin." 

5.  But  the  greatest  fruit  of  the  charity  that  Scrip- 
ture inculcates,  is  habitual  love  to  Grod.  The  greatest 
of  Beings,  he  deserves,  as  well  as  requires,  the  highest 
rank,  and  largest  share  in  our  affections.  And,  the 
presence  of  such  supremest  love  to  our  Creator  does 


CHARITY.  229 

not  abridge,  but  rather  advances,  exalts,  and  sustains 
our  benevolent  regard  to  our  fellow-creature.  God  re- 
jects indignantly,  as  hollow  and  unreal,  the  professions 
of  attachment  to  himself,  that  bring  with  them  no 
feelings  of  kindness  to  man.  "  "Whoso  hath  this 
world's  good,  and  seeth  his  brother  have  need,  and 
shuttetli  up  his  bowels  of  compassion  from  him,  how 

DWELLETH    THE     LOVE     OF      GoD     IN     HIM  ?"        "  He     that 

loveth  not,  knoweth  not  God  :  for  God  is  love." 
"  He  that  saith  he  is  in  the  light,  and  hateth  his 
brother,  is  in  darkness  even  until  now."  "  Pure  re- 
ligion, and  undefiled  before  God  and  the  Father,  is 
this,  To  visit  the  fatherless  and  widows  in  their  afflic- 
tion, and  to  keep  himself  unspotted  from  the  world." 
An  Abel's  offering,  however  regular  and  devout  in  its 
compliance  with  God's  requirement  of  a  bloody  sacri- 
fice, would  have  been  valueless  to  himself  and  unac- 
cepted before  his  God,  had  he  brought  it  with  the 
same  ranklings  of  enmity  at  heart  towards  his  brother, 
as  filled  the  bosom  of  Cain  towards  himself.  Some 
religionists  forget,  or  seem  to  forget  this,  and  the  world, 
taking  advantage  of  their  inconsistency,  discredits  the 
worth  of  piety,  and  the  sincerity  of  those  who  make 
profession  of  it. 

But,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  a  wrong,  yet  vaster  and 
yet  more  irrational,  to  make  kindly  offices  to  man  a 
substitute  for  all  devotion  towards  God.  Had  an 
Absalom  been  the  kindest  of  brothers,  foreseeing,  and 
in  his  quick  sympathies,  anticipating  with  the  fullest 
liberality,  and  the  most  winning  gentleness,  every 
want,  and  every  wish  even,  of  the  brethren  and  sisters 


230  RELIGIOUS     PROGRESS. 

whom  Grod  had  given  him,  all  this  fulness  of  fraternal 
affection  would  not  have  constituted  his  character  one 
of  finished  and  symmetrical  virtue,  whilst  towards  the 
parent,  David,  the  generous  and  fond  father  of  himself 
and  the  entire  household,  his  heart  remained  that  of  a 
callous  and  parricidal  ingrate.  Nor  may  we  play  the 
Absalom  thus,  with  impunity,  towards  a  better  Father 
in  Heaven,  and  then,  turn  to  our  human  charities 
and  sympathies,  as  a  full  discharge  of  all  our  moral 
obligations.  Piety  is  essential  to  Virtue,  and  is  the 
chiefest  constituent  of  a  truly  virtuous  character. 
And  Godliness,  as  we  have,  in  an  earlier  lecture,  said, 
is  essential  to  Happiness  ;  and  man  cannot,  formed 
and  endowed  as  he  is,  be  at  rest  until  he  have  ac- 
quainted himself  with  his  God. 

Is  Charity,  in  this  its  highest  scope,  and  largest 
sense,  but  another  name  for  Godliness  ?  We  answer : 
though  allied  and  even  inseparable,  there  is  a  distinc- 
tion between  them.  Godliness  is  the  practical  result, 
on  life,  and  intellect,  and  Divine  communion,  of  this 
Love  of  God,  or  highest  Charity.  The  latter  is  the 
controlling  motive  ;  the  former,  the  resulting  action 
and  fruit,  which  the  energy  of  that  motive  produces. 
The  Love  of  God,  "  shed  abroad  within  the  heart," 
assimilates  the  life  to  His  will,  imbues  the  spirit,  read- 
ily and  delightfully,  with  His  truth,  and  gives  to  the 
worshipper  filial  access,  and  intercourse,  and  confi- 
dence, in  his  approaches  to  his  Father.  And  here 
we  are  again  met  with  evidence,  that  the  relation  of 
the  several  graces,  enumerated  and  commended  by 
the  apostle  Peter,  in  the  text  before  us,  is  not  a  rela- 


CHARITY. 


231 


tion  of  succession  in  time  and  date.  Some  measure 
of  this  Charity,  or  true  and  grateful  love,  must  spring 
up,  in  the  renewed  heart,  coeval  with  the  first  exer- 
cises of  Faith.  Grod,  truly  seen,  is,  to  the  unsealed 
eye  of  the  regenerate  soul,  a  God  really  loved.  The 
Sun  of  Righteousness  carries  life-giving  loarmth^  in 
the  beams  of  his  lig-Jit.  Of  him,  as  of  the  natural 
orb  of  day,  it  may  be  said  :  "  There  is  nothing  hid 
fro7n  the  heat  thereof.''''  The  heart  is  made  wakeful 
and  glowing,  when  the  intellect  is  thus  truly  illumin- 
ated ;  and  he  who  really  discerns  the  Saviour,  ardently 
loves  Him. 

And  this  makes  the  doctrines  of  the  Incarnation 
and  Atonement  so  infinitely  dear  to  the  Church.  They 
are  not  mere  bodiless  abstractions  of  the  schools. 
They  are  the  nutriment  of  the  closet,  and  the  sanctu- 
ary, and  the  death-bed.  It  is  in  them,  that  a  God  of 
awful  and  ineffable  purity  becomes  accessible  to  a 
race  revolted  and  corrupt.  It  is  in  the  gift  of  His 
Son,  that  God  commended  his  love  to  the  world ;  and 
Heaven  itself,  on  the  bestowment  of  a  Redeemer,  left 
in  its  own  infinite  and  exhaustless  exchequer,  no  richer 
boon.  He  is  "the  unspeakable  gift,"  as  Paul  entitles 
it.  And  the  argument,  that  above  all  others  cheers 
the  desponding  heart,  is  that  God  having  freely  given 
Christ,  the  greatest  and  richest  benefit,  shall  He  not 
with  Him,  "  freely  give  us  all  things?"  In  Him,  the 
embodied  and  incarnate  Deity  has  humanized  itself, 
and  made  itself,  so  to  speak,  tangible,  and  intelligible, 
and  approachable  to  humanity.  We  have,  in  the  High 
Prie?t,  one  who  can  be  touched  with  the  feeling  of 


232  RELIGIOUS    PROGRESS. 

our  infirmities.  And  in  this  Christ,  this  divine  embod- 
iment of  Infinite  love  within  a  mortal  tabernacle,  the 
philosophy  of  the  skies  makes  its  direct  and  palpable 
appeal  to  the  dullest  and  feeblest  intellect.  The  child 
and  the  savage  may  not  have  the  grasp  of  mind,  and 
patience  of  attention,  to  follow  out  any  long  chain  of 
argumentation  ;  but  bring  the  story  of  Calvary  before 
them,  and  every  dormant  power  of  the  soul  is  aroused, 
"  Herein  is  love,  not  that  we  loved  God,  but  that  He 
first  loved  us."  And  stooping  thus  low,  and  coming 
thus  near,  why  should  He  be  refused  the  heart  He 
claims,  and  which  He  claims  only  that  he  may  flood  it 
with  peace — "the  peace  of  Grod,  that  passeth  all  un- 
derstanding" ?  And  if  we  scorn  and  repel  such  ten- 
derness and  benignity,  pluck  we  not  down  on  our  own 
heads  all  the  storms  of  a  just,  and  implacable  ven- 
geance ?  "If  any  man  love  not  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ,  let  him  be  Anathema  Maran-atha." 

And,  as  this  Charity,  or  flame  of  Divine  Love,  kind- 
ling itself  from  the  Altar  on  Calvary,  is  adapted  to 
open  and  win  all  hearts ;  so  is  it  also,  above  all  other 
motives,  and  principles  of  action,  adapted  to  sustain 
an  untiring  zeal,  an  universal  holiness,  and  an  un- 
quenchable benevolence.  Other  and  inferior  objects 
cease,  ultimately,  to  retain  over  us  their  original  power. 
Ambition  sits  down,  frustrated  or  sated.  Avarice  is 
disappointed  of  success,  or  finds  himself  as  bitterly 
disappointed  in  his  success :  it  does  not  bring  con- 
tent or  security.  Pleasure  palls  on  us,  and,  it  may 
be,  corrupts  us.  Knowledge  perplexes  ;  and  Fame 
dazzles,  but  bewilders  us.     The  most  prosperous  of 


c  H  A  R I T  y.  233 

earth's  most  indulged  children,  are  the  victims  of  sa- 
tiety and  weariness.  An  Alexander,  amid  conquests 
and  renown,  and  power,  and  luxury,  sighs  for  the  joy 
of  past  conflicts,  and  for  the  task  of  subjugating  new 
empires  and  worlds.  So,  in  old  age,  how  do  earthly 
goods  lose  their  capacity  to  fill  the  yearning  and  wea- 
ried heart.  With  dullened  ear,  and  failing  eye,  we 
find  that  old  recreations  and  delights  have  spent  their 
power  to  refresh  and  to  excite  us.  But  the  love  of  God 
is  a  spring  whose  elasticity  is  never  lost ;  and  Calam- 
ity, and  Sickness,  and  Age,  and  Death,  leave  this  mo- 
tive power,  but  the  stronger,  unimpaired  and  fresh, 
amid  the  wrecks  of  earth  and  man.  Ingratitude,  and 
Failure,  may  chill  the  philanthropy  that  looks  but  to 
man  for  its  reward :  but  he  who,  like  Howard,  kindles 
his  torch  at  the  flames  of  the  sacrifice  on  Golgotha, 
and  opens  his  heart  to  the  ingushings  of  Divine  Love, 
may  carry  that  torch,  with  unwasted  brilliancy,  and 
even  with  still  augmented  brightness,  through  all  the 
fierce  blasts  of  human  scorn  and  ingratitude,  and 
down  into  the  darkest,  dampest  recesses  where  human 
wickedness  and  misery  assume  their  most  revolting 
and  loathsome  forms. 

And  as  this  love  is,  in  strength  and  duration,  the 
mightiest  of  agencies  on  human  character,  so  is  it,  also, 
the  simplest.  It  throws  dignity  and  splendor  around 
any  task,  however  lowly,  and  any  station  however 
obscure.  As  Luther  was  fond  of  saying :  the  maid- 
servant who  sweeps  the  house,  with  God's  love  in  her 
heart,  as  its  controlling  principle,  is  as  really  serving 
Him,  and  as  surely  accepted  of  Him,  as  the  preacher 


234  RELIGIOUS    PROGRESS, 

dispensing  His  gospel,  or  the  martyr  defending  His 
truths.  Jesus,  the  Son  of  the  Father,  was  as  great 
when  stooping  to  wash  the  feet  of  the  frail,  erring 
disciples,  who  were  so  soon  to  forsake  him,  as  when, 
with  troops  of  attendant  angels,  he  rose,  majestically, 
from  the  earth  he  had  ransomed  to  his  native  heavens. 
And  here  is  the  grandeur  of  the  morality  of  the  New 
Testament.  It  brings  the  motives  of  the  heavenly 
world,  and  the  view  and  love  of  an  Omnipresent  God, 
to  bear  on  all  the  petty  details  and  wearisome  task- 
work of  life.  It  circumfuses  Paradise,  if  we  may  so 
speak,  around  the  beggar  Lazarus,  lying  in  sickness 
and  neglected  need,  on  the  highway.  Be  I  what  I 
may, — poor,  unknown,  reviled  and  wronged,  if  I  but 
love  G-od :  do  I  what  I  may,  be  it  but  the  duty  of 
my  Grod-given  station,  performed  with  a  G-od-fearing 
heart, — it  matters  little,  what  man  may  say,  or  think  or 
do  towards  me.  I  am  G-od's  charge  and  child  and  heir. 
My  prayer  scales  His  heavens ;  His  eye  marks  and 
guides  my  weary  path ;  and  this  path  leads  me, 
through  the  tomb,  up  to  His  throne  and  home.  Where 
is  the  philosophy  that  is  thus  sublime  in  its  aspirations, 
and  yet  thus  simple  and  practical  in  its  hourly  applica- 
tion ? 

Looking  back  on  the  way  through  which  these 
sentences  of  the  apostle  have  led  us,  how  evident  is  it 
that  the  gospel  has  principles  of  permanent  and  uni- 
versal good,  which  need  to  be  yet  more  evolved  and 
illustrated,  in  the  experience  of  the  churches  and  in 
the  character  of  each  individual  disciple. 


CHARITY.  235 

And  in  the  sublime  generalization  of  Scripture, 
which  makes  Love  the  fulfilling  of  the  law,  and  from 
the  contemplation,  first,  of  God,  the  loving,  redeeming, 
and  all-lovely  One,  brings  down  our  hearts  to  the 
wants  and  woes  and  sins  of  our  race ; — and  makes 
Heaven,  the  seat  of  sovereignty,  to  which  Earth  must 
look  up,  and  the  point  of  aspiration,  towards  which  all 
life,  all  care,  all  joy,  all  fears  and  all  hopes  should  be 
directed ; — how  grand  and  yet  how  clear  is  the  scheme 
of  the  gospel,  in  its  provision  for  the  wants,  present 
and  future,  of  man ; — and  this,  not  only  for  man,  as 
the  suffering,  sinning,  and  dying — but  also  for  man, 
as  the  immortal,  the  heir  of  the  resurrection,  amenable 
to  the  judgment  seat,  and  invited  to,  and  capable  of 
the  bliss  and  glory  of  an  endless  Paradise. 

Till  we  love  Christ,  the  first  duty  and  interest  of 
our  nature  is  neglected.  Do  we  love  Him  ?  We  are, 
then,  pledged  to  the  good  of  the  race  and  the  glory  of 
God,  not  only  in  the  world  beyond  the  grave,  but  here 
in  this  world,  the  wayfarer's  lodge  of  our  pilgrim 
years. 

And  now  abideth  faith,  hope,  charity,  these 
three  ;  but  the  greatest  of  these  is  charity. 


^31  p  p  c  n  &  i  jr. 


APPENDIX. 


Note  A. — Page  37. 

The  language  of  P.  Q^uesnel  upon  2  Peter,  i.  3,  is :  "  La 
Fai  est  la  premiere  grace,  et  la  source  de  toutes  les  autres." 
This  was  extracted  in  the  celebrated  Bull  Unigenitus,  (so 
called  from  the  opening  word  of  its  first  sentence,)  condemna- 
tory of  liis  work  and  doctrines  ;  and  for  the  refusal  to  receive 
which,  so  many  thousands  of  the  Jansenists  suffered  deprivation, 
imprisonment,  or  exile,  or  were  denied  the  ordinary  com- 
munion, and  burial  at  death.  This  sentence  of  the  comment 
forms  the  twenty-seventh  Proposition  of  those  one  hundred  and 
one,  enumerated  and  branded  by  the  Bull.  How  the  Pontiff, 
claiming  as  he  does  to  be  the  successor  of  the  Apostle  Peter, 
could  place  Gluesnel  under  the  b^-n,  and  yet  leave  untouched 
the  apostle,  whose  chair  he  himself  assumes  to  fill,  seems  to 
us  a  mystery.  Less  even  than  an  expositor's  inference, — the 
comment  thus  condemned,  appears  to  be,  in  this  case,  but  a 
mere  paraphrase  of  the  apostle's  text. 

In  the  "  Traile  TJieologique  sur  les  cent-une  propositions 
condamnees  par  la  Bulle  Utiigenitus.  1720,"  forming  two 
large  volumes  in  quarto,  an  attempt,  with  much  patient  eru- 
dition, is  made  to  defend  the  positions  of  the  Bull  against  the 
strong  arguments  and  censures,  which,  aUke  from  the  Scrip- 
tures and  the  Fathers,  the  Jansenists  had  brought  to  withstand 
the  Papal  Edict.     When  we  find  these  last  adducing,  in  sup- 


240 


APPENDIX. 


port  of  duesnel's  sentiment,  texts  like  that  from  the  Epistle  1o 
the  Hebrews  :  "  But  without  faith  it  is  impossible  to  pleaso 
him  :  for,  he  that  cometh  to  God  must  believe  that  he  is,  and" 
that  he  is  a  re  warder  of  them  that  diligently  seek  him,"  it 
wo\ild  seem  difficult  for  any  ingenuity  to  parry  their  force  ; 
yet  it  is,  through  weary  pages,  attempted.  And  when,  in  ad- 
dition to  the  scriptural  argument,  the  Jansenists  brought  theii 
quotations  from  the  Fathers,  on  whose  authority  Rome  has 
laid  such  stress,  as  from  Ambrose,  (lib.  de  Cain)  "  Faith  is 
the  root  of  all  the  virtues  ;"  from  Augustine  (epist.  194.)  "  It 
is  from  faith  that  all  righteousness  takes  its  beginning :  all 
merit  owes  to  this  its  birth,  and  of  it  this  is  the  principle  and 
the  root"  (Tr.  Theol.  t.  I.  p.  559  ;)  and  from  Gregory  the 
Great,  (Moral,  lib.  2,  cap.  46.)  "  The  other  children  feast  as 
at  the  house  of  their  elder  brother,  whensoever  the  other  vir- 
tues feed  on  faith ;  for  if  faith  be  not  the  first-born  in  our 
heart,  nought  else  that  is  found  there  can  be  good,  however  it 
may  seem  so"  (Ibid.  p.  562  :)  it  would  seem  to  an  unbiassed 
reader,  as  if  dexterity  were  hopelessly  employed,  in  endeavor- 
ing to  reconcile  such  unquestioned  testimonies  of  the  Fathers, 
with  the  condemnation  of  kindred  sentiments  and  language 
from  the  page  of  the  good  Jansenist. 

But  the  chief  ground  of  apprehension  to  Rome,  was,  that 
such  views  of  the  precedence  and  necessity  of  Faith,  were  in 
conflict  wdth  the  doctrine  for  which  Jesuitism  contended  so 
earnestly, — that  of  sufficient  grace,  supposed  to  be  given  to 
all  men,  even  the  heathen  never  receiving  the  gospel  ; — a 
doctrine  to  which  Pascal  alludes  so  often  and  happily,  in  the 
Provincial  Letters.  The  impugners  of  Ciuesnel,  and  apolo- 
gists of  the  Pontifical  Bull,  held,  that  in  the  case  of  these 
we  must  suppose  the  presence  of  grace  sufl^icient  for  their  sal- 
vation, and  yet  we  could  not  imagine  the  existence  of  Faith, 
where  the  gospel  was  not.     They  quote  from  Thomas  Aqui- 


APPENDIX. 


241 


nas,  "  the  angel  of  the  "Schools,"  as  they  call  him,  the  argu- 
ment, "  Now  it  may  be  that  a  man  shall  be  brought  up 
among  wild  beasts  in  the  forest,  and  this  man,  in  such  a  case, 
could  not  beUeve ;  and  consequently  must  fall  of  necessity, 
imder  sentence  of  damnation.  This  would  be  absurd :"  he 
thence  concludes  that  faith  is  not  absolutely  necessary.  (Tr. 
Theol.  ibid.  p.  545.)  But  is  not  Faith  more  than  a  reception 
of  the  mere  gospel  ?  Is  not  the  acquiescence  in  any  or  all 
light  coming  from  God,  whether  it  be  by  Nature,  Providence, 
or  Scripture,  of  the  character  of  Faith  ?  Would  not  one  so 
disadvantageously  reared  as  the  person  described  by  Aquinas, 
— if  the  mind  were  at  all  expanded — be,  as  his  mind  opened 
to  the  notions  and  ghmpses  of  a  God,  manifested  in  any  way, 
or  in  any  degree  to  him,  in  his  narrow  and  dark  sphere — so 
far  a  believer  ?  And  might  not  the  Spirit,  on  a  mind  so  situ- 
ated ,  work  without  the  Scripture  ?  The  cases,  we  beUeve,  of 
such  docility  to  truth  in  the  Pagan,  to  be  most  rare  ;  but  we 
camiot  see  their  impossibility.  And  whatever  the  acuteness 
and  depth  of  Aquinas,  his  inference  from  his  illustration, 
seems  in  irreconcilable  conflict  with  the  language  as  to  Faith, 
already  quoted  from  the  Hebrews :  Can  any  mind,  in  any 
dispensation,  approach  God  or  receive  his  teachings,  except  in 
the  exercise  of  Faith  ?  He  supposes  his  savage  possibly  saved, 
and  salvation  implies  "  coming  to  God  :"  is  not  the  sentence 
from  the  Hebrews  decisive,  that  from  such  "  coming,"  Faith 
is  inseparable  ?  For  the  principle  of  Faith  leans  to  God — ex- 
pects from  Him — implores  of  Him — trusts  in  Him  ;  the  lean- 
ing may  be  blind,  the  expectation  vague,  the  prayer  broken, 
and  the  trust  feeble.  But  it  is,  at  least,  a  going  of  the  hu- 
man soul  out  of  itself  for  help  to  a  God  more  or  less  distinctly 
discerned. 

To  the  Romish  condemnation,  on  such  grounds,  of  the  Jan- 
senist  proposition,  we  have,  therefore,  these  two  objections.    It 

11 


242  APPENDIX.  ^ 

assumes  for  Grace  a  wider  sense  than  that  in  which  the  New 
Testament  employs  the  term ;  apostles,  it  seems  to  us,  using 
that  phrase  rather  to  describe  God's  gifts  accompanying  sal- 
vation, than  the  general  bounties  and  lights  of  providence  and 
conscience,  granted  indiscriminately  and  apart  from  the  gos- 
pel. On  the  other  hand,  it  assumes  for  Faith,  a  narrower 
meaning  than  that  ui  which  it  is  used  by  inspired  writers,  es- 
pecially in  the  instance  already  cited  from  the  Epistle  to  the 
Hebrews.  There  it  seems  to  take  in  all  approach  to,  and  trust  ia 
God  ;  whether,  as  He  is  sought,  without  revelation  in  the  char- 
acter of  the  God  of  Providence,  or,  as  sought  with  the  aid  of  rev- 
elation, in  the  character  of  the  God  of  redemption ;  and  whether 
the  soul  so  trusting  in  and  seeking  him,  come  in  lands  and  tribes 
unevangelized,  by  the  darkling  paths  of  nature,  reason,  and 
conscience  ;  or,  in  the  broad  daylight  of  the  Bible,  and  along 
the  opened  pathway  presented  in  the  sacrifice  and  intercession 
of  Christ,  as  by  that  Bible  it  is  fully  manifested  to  the  inqui- 
rer. Christ  would  be  in  either  case,  the  only  Saviour ;  but 
in  the  one,  a  Christ  unknown,  in  the  other,  a  Christ  known. 
So,  the  heathen,  perverting  and  rejecting  the  light  wliich 
they  have,  are  condemned  for  this.  They  "  like  not  to  retain 
God  in  their  knowledge."  This  is  their  form  of  unbelief — the 
shape  in  which  they  refuse  Faith,  and  perish  by  the  lack  of 
it,  choosing  to  reject  "  what  might  be  known  of  God," — in 
his  ordinary  works,  and  in  the  career  of  his  providence. 

Taking  the  words  Grace  and  Faith,  in  the  proper  and  apos- 
tolical signification,  we  deem  Gluesnel's  position  that  of  the 
Bible,  and  the  impeaclnnent  of  it  by  the  Bull  Unigenitus,  and 
by  its  defenders,  to  be  one  of  the  many  and  sad  instances  in 
which  the  Roman  Pontiff,  sitting  "  in  the  temple  of  God," 
contradicted  his  oracles,  and  thus,  in  the  character  of  Anti- 
christ, "  opened  his  mouth  against  God."*' 

*  Rev.  xiii.  6, 


APPENDIX.  243 


Note  B. — Page  56. 


Bongel,  in  his  commentarj^  the  Gnomon  Novi  Testamen- 
Ti,  upon  2  Peter,  i.  5,  having  traced  the  hond  of  connection, 
which  unites  the  several  graces  enumerated  hy  the  apostle,  as 
they  lie  in  their  direct  order,  then  proceeds  to  illustrate  the 
same  mutual  dependence  between  these  several  graces  ol'  the 
Christian  character,  as  retraced  in  their /crerse  order.  Thus, 
as  he  proceeds  to  remark,  the  man  having  cliurity,  will,  in 
the  manifestation  of  his  brotheiiy-kindncss,  display  it  without 
partiality.  And  he  who  has  brotherly-kindness  will  perceive 
clearly  that  godliness  is  necessary.  The  godly  wiU  not  alloy 
with  the  debasing  intermixture  of  stoical  apathy,  his  patience. 
To  the  truly  patient  man,  again,  temperance  will  be  easy. 
The  temperate  brings  to  every  subject  a  calm,  clear  mind, 
and  thus  gathers  knotcledge.  And  knowledge  guards  virtue 
from  being  hurried  away  by  unconsidered  impulse  ;  Bengel 
using  virtue  in  the  sense  of  christian  boldness  or  energy. 

With  that  condensed,  epigrammatic  brevity  which  so  char- 
acterizes his  memorable  work,  he  then  proceeds  to  intimate, 
rather  than  to  unfold  at  length,  the  mode  in  which  Unbelief, 
the  opposite  of  Faith,  has  its  train  and  banded  company  of  at- 
tendant evils.  "  A  similar  relation  of  the  opposite  qualities 
prevails  in  the  wicked.  Unbelief  hegets  Vice,  &c."  Com 
pleting  the  series  of  which  he  thus  indicates  but  the  first  links, 
we  suppose  that  the  sentence  would  proceed,  somewhat  in  the 
order  following.  Unbelief  begets  Vice,  and  vice  begets  spir- 
itiial  ig7torance ;  spiritttal  ig7iorancc  fosters  all  intemper- 
ance and  license,  as  the  last  produces  a  fretful  and -selfish  im- 
"patience,  wliich  in  its  turn,  chiding  man  and  murmuring 
against  God,  begets  a  hardened  2ingodUncss.  Ungodlitiess, 
releasing  itself  from  the  Supreme  Parent,  soon  disowns  the 


244  APPENDIX. 

human  brotherhood,  and  becomes  inhumanity ;  and  iyihu 
nia.nity  spreads  and  deepens  into  an  inveterate  and  absorbing 
selfi&hiiess,  "  hating  and  hateful,"  that  "  fears  not  God  nor  re- 
gards man,"  constructing  for  itself  out  of  the  wreck  of  the  uni- 
verse, a  throne  for  the  installation  and  apotheosis  of  its  own 
.'onsumuig  and  destructive  egotism. 

Or,  in  other  words,  it  would  seem  that  the  man  who  with- 
holds a  reasonable  and  filial  Faith  from  God's  statements  and 
commands,  enters  upon  a  course,  the  legitimate  and  final  de- 
velopment of  which  is, — isolation  from  society  and  mau,  as 
well  as  from  Providence.  Refusmg  God's  truth,  he  claims 
ultimately  for  self,  the  prerogatives  and  rights  of  a  God.  The 
only  possible  alternative  for  us,  therefore,  is  to  allow  the  rule 
of  his  creation  to  Jehovah  ;  or  to  claim  it  for  our  frail  and  evil 
selves.  If  we  choose  the  latter-,  we  usurp,  to  be  wielded  by 
our  own  mortal  incompetence,  Jehovah's  sceptre  : — not  only 
to  his  wrong  whom  we  defy,  and  to  our  own  wrong,  whom  we 
thus  disinherit,  but  to  the  sorrow  and  injury  of  our  fellow-man, 
and  of  the  lower  creatures,  and  of  Nature  itself — all  which  we 
necessarily  learn  to  maltreat,  and  oppress,  and  pervert.  With 
this  train  of  consequences,  it  will  be  seen  how  "  he  that  be- 
lieveth  not  is  damned,"  not  only  by  the  righteous  sentence 
of  the  Maker,  Sovereign,  and  Redeemer,  whom  he  scorns,  but 
he  is  condemned,  as  well  by  the  consciences  of  his  fellow-sin- 
ners, whom  he  wrongs  and  degrades,  and  by  the  suffrages  of 
the  lov/er  orders  of  creation,  over  whom  he  constitutes  himself 
a  reckless  and  selfish  tyrant.  "  The  whole  creation  groaneth 
and  travaileth  together,"  in  the  sublime  language  of  the  apos- 
tle, against  such  an  offender.  In  casting  off  his  own  celestial 
allegiance,  he  forfeits,  of  right,  and  is  sure  to  abuse,  in  fact, 
his  terrestrial  dominion.  The  "  tmjust  steward"  learns  soon 
"  to  smite  his  fellow-servants,"  and  embezzling  from  his  lord, 
becomes  cru';l  to  his  equals  and  dependants. 


APPENDIX.  245 

Another  wide  field  of  thought  is  opened  in  the  suggestive 
pages  of  "  Saturday  Evening,"  one  of  the  profound  and  elo- 
quent works  of  Isaac  Taylor.*  DifTering,  as  we  feel  ourselves 
compelled  to  do,  from  some  of  the  minor  expositions  of  this 
very  able  writer,  Ave  must  yet  regard  his  observations  with 
deepest  respect.  He  has  said  of  the  passage  in  Peter,  which 
forms  the  theme  of  these  lectures,  and  to  which  he  devotes 
four  brilliant  chapters  of  the  work  above  named  :t  "  We 
might  well  seek  our  illustration  of  the  apostolic  injunction  by 
taking  a  view  at  large  of  Church  History,  and  then  wq 
shall  find,  beneath  the  significant  phraseology  of  the  passage, 
a  comlcnsed  but  comjn-ehensive  caution  against  each  of  these 
prominent  coi'ruptio7is  that  have  developed  themselves  in  the 
course  of  eighteen  centuries.  They  are  readily  enumerated, 
and  may  be  thus  designated  : — 1st.  Pusillanimous  or  inert 
faith; — 2d.  The  licentious  abuse  of  the  gospel ; — 3d.  A  fa- 
natical or  haughty  S7(bjugation  of  animal  desires ; — 4th. 
Anchoretic  pietism  ; — and  5th.  Sectarian  or  factious  social- 
ity.    Thus  our  apostohc  canon  is  seen  to  hold  up,  as  in  a 

MIRROR,  THE    HISTORY  OF  THE    DEGENERATE    CHRISTIANITY    OF 
ALL    AGES."  X 

Whilst  the  devout  Bengel,  therefore,  guides  our  thoughts 
to  the  influence  of  the  absence  of  these  traits,  on  the  individ- 
ual  character  and  well-being,  the  British  Christian  directs  us, 
on  the  other  hand,  to  the  bearing  which  neglect,  as  to  these 
apostolic  graces,  will  have  upon  the  welfare  and  virtue  of 
Christian  communities  and  churches,  in  their  collective  ca- 
pacity. To  follow  out  either  train  of  thought,  at  the  length 
which  the  stores  of  individual  biography  and  the  annals  of  the 

*  "  Saturday  Evening.     By  the  author  of  Natural   History  of  En- 
thusiasm."    New  York:  1832. 
f  Chap  xiL  xiv.  xvii.  xviil  J  Page  180. 


246  APPENDIX. 

secular  or  ecclesiastical  historian  would  easily  allow,  would 
require  another  volume  equal  in  size  to  the  present. 

As  in  a  later  note  we  shall  have  occasion  to  remark,  we 
cannot  apply  the  terra  "virtue,"  in  the  limited  interpretation 
which  our  gifted  author  has  attached  to  it.  Taken  in  the 
larger  sense,  which,  as  elsewhere,  so  here  also,  we  believe, 
belongs  to  it : — ^Virtue  apart  from  Faith,  or  Faith  severed 
from  Virtue  ;  Virtue  without  Knowledge  ;  Knowledge  with 
Dut  Temperance  ;  Temperance  without  Patience  ;  Patience 
without  Godliness  ;  Godliness  without  Brotherly-kindness,  and 
Brotherly-kindness  without  Charity,  would  each  furnish  chap- 
ters on  the  history  of  the  individual  man, — on  the  workings  of 
national  character,  and  on  the  annals  of  the  Christian  church- 
es, that,  we  can  conceive,  would  be  full  alike  of  interest  and 
instruction. 

For  "  Godliness,"  both  in  its  own  essence,  and  in  its  first 
constituent  principle,  "Faith,"  and  in  its  last  consummate 
and  crowning  result,  or  "  Charity,"  is  profitable  for  all  things, 
and  hath  "  the  promise  of  the  life  that  now  is."  Any  just 
estimate  of  this  "life  that  now  is,"  and  any  close  analysis  of 
that  "  life,"  either  in  the  isolated  person,  or  in  the  societies  of 
the  world  and  the  church,  would  bring  out,  to  a  Christian  ob- 
server of  any  philosophical  insight,  the  most  abundant  and 
irrefragable  testimony,  that  the  Maker  of  man's  heart,  and 
the  Ruler  of  the  world's  history,  had  been  also  the  Legislator 
and  Author  of  the  Scriptures  :  in  that  volume  requiring  as  in- 
dispensable to  holiness,  what  all  the  experience  of  the  race 
has  shown  to  be  indispensable  to  happiness. 


APPENDIX.  247 


Note  C. — Page  62. 

It  is  the  remark  of  the  Rev.  S.  T.  Bloomfield,  in  his 
"Greek  Testament  with  Enghsh  Notes,"  upon  this  portion  of 
Peter's  Second  Epistle,  that  "  the  best  commentators  are  justly 
agreed,"  in  giving  to  the  term  here  rendered,  in  our  Enghsh 
version  "  virtue,"  the  sense  of  "  courage  and  constancy  in 
professing  tlie  faith,  amidst  persecution  ami  temptation.  A 
signification  frequent  in  the  classical  writers,  from  Homer 
downwards,  and  found  in  the  Latin,  virtus."  This  limited 
sense  of  the  term  is  the  one  adopted  also  by  Isaac  Taylor,  in 
his  "  Saturday  Evening,"  who  heads  the  chapter  of  his  work 
founded  on  the  apostolic  injunction, — "  Add  to  your  Faith 
Virtue,"  by  the  title,  "  Piety  and  Energy,"*  and  defines  the 
virtue  as  being  "  manly  energy,  or  vigor  ;"t  or,  again,  as  "  the 
constancy  and  courage  of  manly  vigor,"  the  Greek  word  hav- 
ing, as  he  holds,  "  this  specific  sense. "t  In  favor  of  a  like 
interpretation  of  it,  are  the  high  and  earher  authorities  of 
Hammond,  and  Doddridge,  and  the  elder  Rosenmuller  ;  and 
above  all,  of  that  acute  critic,  and  most  devout  Christian,  the 
great  Bengel,  who  defines  the  word,  as  conveying  the  sense 
of  such  tone  and  vigor  of  soul,  as  the  apostle  in  his  First 
Epistle  inculcates,  whan  bidding  the  disciple  to  "  gird  up  the 
loins  of  his  mind." 

For  deserting,  however,  tliis  interpretation,  and  reluming 
to  that  of  the  earlier  commentators,  there  are  various  consid- 
erations. Dr.  Bloomfield  himself,  in  his  larger  exposition,  the 
"  Recensio  Synoptica,"  has  held  an  opposite  view  to  that  adopt- 
ed in  his  other  and  briefer  work  ;  and  this  he  sustains  in  the 
following  remarks  : — "  Most  modern  commentators  from  Ham- 
mond to  Pott  and  Rosermiuller,  considering  that  several  partio 

*  Page  174.  f  Page  178.  X  Page  189. 


248  APPENDIX. 

ulars  included  in  the  general  sense  of  the  term,  are  just  after 
added,  take  in  the  more  special  sense,  courage,  Hke  the  Latin 
virtus.  But  this  signification  is  unexampled  in  the  Scrip- 
tures ;  and  the  apostle  elsewhere  shows  too  little  attention  to 
logical  regularity  to  allow  us  to  lay  much  stress  on  the  argu- 
ment adduced.  Therefore,  though  this  interpretation  is  ably 
supported  by  Hammond,  Doddridge,  Benson,  Wall,  Macknight, 
and  Rosenmuller,  I  cannot  consent  to  abandon  the  common 
one,  Christian  virtue,  which  is  retained  and  well  illustrated 
by  Schleusner,  (Lexicon.)"  *  And  not  only  is  Bloomfield  thus 
inconsistent  and  wavering  in  his  construction  of  the  terra,  but 
the  excellent  Bengel,  notwithstanding  all  his  clearness  of 
vision,  and  his  characteristic  strength  of  convictions,  seems  here 
to  retract,  in  another  portion  of  his  commentary  on  the  chapter, 
his  adhesion  to  the  sense  of  energy  or  courage.  Li  enumera- 
ting the  virtues  that  attend  Faith,  he  takes  occasion  to  allude 
to  the  opposite  chain  of  vices  that  accompany  unbelief.  And 
out  of  the  latter,  or  unbelief,  he  makes  "■Yice'''  to  spring,  just 
as  the  corresponding  outgrowth  of  Faith  is  Virtue.  Now,  in 
consistency  with  his  interpretation  of  the  Greek  word  that 
follows  Faith,  the  correlative  term  here  to  describe  the  first- 
fruit  of  unbelief,  was  '■'Fear  ofman,'^  or  the  scriptural  phrase 
for  that  weakness,  which  is  the  opposite  of  holy  boldness  in 
God's  service.  "  T^ce"  is  the  opposite  and  correlative  term  to 
"Virtue,"  taken  in  the  ordinary  English  sense  of  the  last 
word,  and  with  the  idea  attached  by  the  older  commentators 
and  critics  to  this  Greek  term. 

Nor  do  the  moderns  go,  universally,  into  the  views  of 
Hammond,  and  Rosenmuller.  Besides  Schleusner  above  quo- 
ted, Bretschneider  also,  in  his  Lexicon  of  the  New  Testament, 
is  found  giving  to  the  word  in  the  present  sentence  the  sense 
of  "  Probity,  Uprightness."     And  Semler,  who  wanted  neither 

*  Rec.  Synop.  voL  viii.  p.  698. 


APPENDIX. 


2^ 


ftcuteness  nor  erudition,  nor,  on  the  other  hand,  leaned  with 
any  fondness  of  reverence  to  old  interpretations,  yet  says,  in 
his  comment  on  2  Peter,* — "  Some  explain  it  as  being  Forti- 
tude, to  wliich  I  carmot  agree  :  I  should  prefer  the  internal 
impulses  and  emotions  of  holiness,  {intermim  motum  ct  se?i- 
stini  quasi  sanctitatis.)  This  I  prefer,  to  the  exposition  of 
Beza,  holy  and  virtuous  conduct :  for  conduct  has  reference 
only  to  the  mode  of  using  outward  objects  ;  but  Peter  speaks 
of  the  mind  itself,  and  of  its  higher  (moral)  attainments."  So 
too  Wolfius,  in  his  Curse  Philolog.  et  Crit.  in  N.  Test.,  wliilst 
referring  to  some  who  prefer  the  sense  of  constancy  and  mauly 
vigor,  himself  chooses  rather  to  retain  that  of  Virtue,  or  the 
love  of  Virtue,  in  the  general  sense  of  that  term.  Calvin's 
remark,  in  unison  with  the  interpretation  already  quoted  from 
his  great  disciple  Beza,  is  :  "I  take  Virtue  to  mean  an  up- 
right and  well-governed  life,  for  the  term  here  is  .^(jsitj,  and 
not  EisQyeia."  The  authors  of  the  English  Geneva  version, 
accord  with  these  their  revered  instructors  evidently,  when, 
in  their  note  on  this  passage,  they  explain  Virtue  as  "  Godly 
maJtfiers."  Adams,  the  quaint  Puritan  expositor  of  this  Sec- 
ond Epistle  of  Peter,  makes  the  Virtue  here  commended,  to  be 
in  its  general  sense,  or  "  in  the  latitude,"  to  use  his  phrase,  in- 
clusive of  "  all  graces  and  good  erulowinents.^'  t 

To  return,  in  tliis  matter  with  Wolfius,  Semler,  Schleus- 
ner,  and  Bretschneider,  to  the  more  ancient  interpretation, 
we  find  ourselves  compelled  by  various  considerations,  that 
seem  of  preponderating  and  overwhelming  force.  The  first 
is,  that  even  in  a  Pagan  writer  on  morals,  the  word  would 
from  the  nature  of  the  theme,  receive  the  larger  and  more 
general  sense.  Much  more  would  such  seem  the  natural  and 
necessary  sense,  in  a  book  so  essentially  ethical  as  the  New 
Testament.     Again,  the  scriptural  usage  is  against  the  more 

*  Halae.  1784.  p.  17.  \  Adams  on  2  Peter.    Lend.  1839.  p.  64 

11* 


250  APPENDIX. 

modern  and  limited  explication.  Apply  that  sense  to  the 
same  word  as  used  by  Paul  in  his  magnificent  adjuration  :* 
"  If  there  he  any  virtue,  and  if  there  he  any  jn-aise,  think  on 
these  things."  Would  not  the  substitution  of  "  Courage," 
here,  lamentably  and  manifestly  weaken  the  force  of  the  ap- 
peal, and  mar  the  harmony  of  the  sentence  thus  closed,  with 
its  introductory  strain, — "  Finally,  brethren,  whatsoever  things 
are  true,  whatsoever  things  are  honest,  whatsoever  things  are 
just,  whatsoever  things  are  pure,  whatsoever  things  are  lovely, 
whatsoever  things  are  of  good  I'eport  ?"  These  instances  in 
Paul  and  Peter  are  the  only  cases  in  which  the  New  Testa- 
ment uses  the  word  as  descriptive  of  human  character.!  Pass 
from  the  New  Testament  to  the  Greek  of  the  Apocrypha,  in 
the  book  called  the  Wisdom  of  Solomon  :  "  Better  is  it  to  have 
no  children  and  to  have  virtue  ;  for  the  memorial  thereof  is 
immortal :  because  it  is  known  with  God  and  with  men."$ 
Its  immortal  record  with  God,  decides  in  what  sense  the 
Greek  word  there  was  used.  The  definitions  in  Greek  of  the 
word  by  Hesychius,  and  by  Cyril,  in  a  MS.  Lexicon  at  Bre- 
men, as  quoted  in  Schleusner,  Lex.  Vet.  Test.,  are  of  the  same 
tenor  and  efTect.  And  the  contexture  which  we  have  endeav- 
ored to  trace  out  between  the  various  graces  as  arranged  by 
Peter  in  the  passage  before  us,  also  forbids  our  acceptance  of 
Energy  or  Boldness,  as  the  fitting  sense  here.  Between  Vir- 
tue and  Faith  on  the  one  hand,  and  between  Virtue  and 
Knowledge  on  the  other,  we  see  a  close  and  natural  sequence. 
But  why  Boldness  should  especially  need  Knowledge,  or  be  espe- 
cially needed  by  Faith,  does  not  seem  to  us,  even  with  the  ex- 
position of  the  excellent  Bengel  before  us,  as  clearly  made  out. 

*PhU.iv.  8. 

f  Other  passages  of  the  New  Testament  apply  it  to  the   Bivim 
character  and  operations,  in  the  sense  of  Energy. 
X  Wisd.  of  Sol.  iv.  1. 


APPENDIX.  251 

The  later  English  expositoi-s  seem  to  have  been,  in  this  mat- 
ter, led  astray,  by  the  autliority  of"  Hammond.  And  his  opinion 
of  the  passage  would  appear  to  furnish  anotlier  proof  of  the  jus- 
tice of  the  charge,  which  his  Puritan  and  Non-conformist  con- 
temporaries and  successors  brought  against  Hiimmond, — that 
of  being  dazzled  and  bUnded  by  an  overweening  admiration  for 
Grotius.  This  great  scholar  gives  his  candid  acknowledg- 
ment that  the  word  in  Paul's  Epistle  to  the  Philippians,  and  in 
the  Pagan  writers  on  morals  {ajnid  Pkilosoplios)  must  be 
taken  in  its  general  sense,  or  rendered  "  Virtue.'''  But  lie  ar- 
gues, that  here  it  cannot  bear  this  larger  sense,  because  many 
names  of  specific  virtues,  as  temperance  and  patience ,  follow. 
And,  therefore,  Grotius  thinks  it  must  here  be  understood  of 
Fortitude  in  the  faith.*  He  would  thus  distinguish  it  from 
its  accompanying  and  subsequent  graces.  But  would  not  the 
same  argument  require  him  to  devise  some  newer  and  more 
restricted  sense  for  Godliness,  also,  which,  in  its  large,  scrip- 
tural meanmg,  includes  all  the  precedent  and  subsequent  ex- 
cellencies of  the  christian  character  ?  But  if,  as  we  thuik 
that  a  careful  student  of  the  passage  must  allow,  various  other 
of  these  traits,  quite  as  much  overlap  each  other,  and  Faith 
and  Knowledge  must,  to  a  certain  extent,  include  one  anoth- 
er ;  and  so  also  Godliness  and  Charity,  (in  the  highest  sense 
of  that  last  term,  as  the  supreme  Love  of  God  along  with  an 
equitable  Love  of  man,)  do  cover,  both,  a  portion  of  common 
territory  ;  then,  as  we  suppose,  the  argument  of  Grotius  must 
fail.  It  would  lie  against  other  graces  as  well,  whose  defini- 
tion he  does  not  attempt,  on  that  account,  to  alter.  And  that 
it  cannot  be  carried  out  uniformly,  is  a  reason  why  this  pro- 
cess of  restriction  and  close  isolation  of  each  grace,  should  not 
be  even  commenced,  by  the  interpreter. 

We  adhere,  therefore,  to  that  opinion  of  Bloomfield  which 
*  Grotius.  Annot.  2  Peter  L  6. 


252  APPENDIX. 

is  found  in  the  Recensio  Synoptica,  and  which  is  also  that 
of  the  older  scholars  ;  because,  as  it  seems  to  us,  the  ordinary 
application  of  the  term,  even  by  heathen  philosophers,  when 
writing  on  morals,  its  use  in  the  Greek  version  of  the  Apoc- 
rypha, its  sense  elsewhere  in  the  New  Testament,  and  above 
all,  the  comiection  of  the  ideas  in  the  sentence  before  us,  leave 
no  other  alternative. 


Note  D.— Page  93. 

Speaking  of  the  illumination  that  should  attend  the  latter 
and  happier  ages  of  the  Christian  dispensation,  the  elder  Pres- 
ident "Edwards  has,  in  his  History  of  Redemption,  these 
words  ;  they  deserve  respect,  as  those  of  a  thinker,  eminently 
calm  and  profound,  and  whose  acquaintance  with  Scripture 
was  intimate. 

"  It  will  be  a  time  of  great  light  and  knowledge.  The  pres- 
ent arc  days  of  darkness,  in  comparison  of  those  days.  The 
light  of  that  glorious  time  shall  be  so  great,  that  it  is  repre- 
sented as  though  there  should  then  be  no  night,  but  only  day  ; 
no  evening  nor  darkness.  So  Zech.  xiv.  6,  7  ;  '  And  it  shall 
come  to  pass  in  that  day,  that  the  light  shall  not  be  clear  nor 
dark.  But  it  shall  be  one  day,  which  shall  be  known  to  the 
Lord,  not  day  nor  night ;  but  it  shall  come  to  pass  that  at 
evening-time  it  shall  be  light.'  It  is  farther  represented  as 
though  God  would  then  give  such  light  to  his  Church,  that  it 
should  so  much  exceed  the  glory  of  the  light  of  the  sun  and 
moon,  that  they  should  be  ashamed  :  Isa.  xxiv.  23.  '  Then 
the  moon  shall  be  confounded,  and  the  sun  ashamed,  when 
the  Lord  of  Hosts  shall  reign  in  Mount  Zion,  and  in  Jerusa- 
lem, and  before  his  ancients  gloriously.' 


APPENDIX. 


253 


"  There  is  a  kind  of  vail  now  cast  over  the  greater  part  of 
t1ie  world,  which  keeps  them  in  darkness  ;  but  then  this  vail 
•shall  be  destroyed.  Isa.  xxv.  7  :  '  And  he  will  destroy  in  this 
mountain  the  face  of  the  covering  cast  over  all  people, 
and  the  vail  that  is  spread  over  all  nations.'  Then  all 
countries  and  nations,  even  those  which  are  now  most 
ignorant,  shall  be  full  of  light  and  knowledge.  Great  knowl- 
edpre  shall  prevail  everywhere.  It  may  be  hoped  that  then 
many  of  the  Negroes  and  Indians  will  be  divines,  and  that 
excellent  books  will  be  published  in  Africa,  in  Ethiopia,  in 
Tartary,  and  other  now  the  most  barbarous  countries  ;  and  not 
only  learned  men,  but  others  of  more  ordinary  education,  shall 
then  be  very  knowing  in  religion.  Jer.  xxxii.  34  :  'And  they 
shall  teach  no  more  ever)'  man  his  neighbor,  and  every  man 
his  brother,  saying.  Know  the  Lord  ;  for  they  shall  all  know 
me,  from  the  least  of  them  unto  the  greatest  of  them.' 

"  There  shall  then  be  a  loonderful  tinravelling  of  the  diffir 
culfies  in  the  doctrines  of  religion,  and  clearing  nj)  of  seem- 
ing inconsistencies :  '  so  crooked  things  shall  be  made 
straight,  and  rough  places  shall  be  made  plain,  and  darkness 
shall  become  light  before  God's  people.'  Difficulties  in  Scrip- 
ture shall  then  be  cleared  tip,  and  a\'onderful  things  shall 

BE     DISCOVERED    IN  THE    WORD    OF    GoD,  WHICH  WERE    NEVER 

DISCOVERED  BEFORE.  The  great  discovery  of  those  things  in 
religion,  which  had  before  been  kept  hid,  seems  to  be  com- 
pared to  removing  the  vail,  and  discovering  the  ark  of  the 
testimony  to  the  people,  M'hich  before  used  to  be  kept  in  the 
secret  part  of  the  temple,  and  was  never  seen  by  them.  Thus, 
at  the  sonnding  of  the  seventh  angel,  when  it  is  proclaimed, 
'  that  the  kingdoms  of  this  world  are  become  the  kingdoms  of 
our  Lord  and  of  his  Christ ;'  it  is  added,  that  '  the  temple  of 
God  was  opened  in  heaven,  and  there  was  seen  in  his  temple 
the  ark  of  his  testament  "     So  great  shall  be  the  increase 


254  APPENDIX. 

OF    KNOWLEDGE  IN    TIUS    TiafE,  THAT    HEAVEN    SH^LL    BE  AS    fl 
WERE,  OPENED  TO  THE  CHURCH  OF  GoD  ON  EaRTH."       Works 

of  President  Edwards,  in  Ten  Volumes  ;  New  York,  1829,  vol 
iii.  pp.  405,  406. 


Note  E.— Page  135 


The  remark  of  Bengel,  as  to  the  bond  of  connection,  and 
law  of  arrangement,  between  the  several  graces  enumerated 
by  the  apostle  Peter  in  this  passage,  is,  that  "  the  order  is 
rather  that  of  nature  than  that  of  time  ;"  or,  in  other  words, 
they  are  not  classed  by  date  and  order  of  succession,  so  much 
as  by  intrinsic  character  and  their  consequent  relation.  He 
had  introduced  this  remark  by  the  sentence  quoted  as  a  motto 
on  the  title-page  of  the  present  volume  :  "  Each  several  de- 
gree induces  AND  facilitates  THAT  WHICH  IMMEDIATELY 
FOLLOWS  IT  ;  EACH  FOLLOWING  ONE,  ATTEMPERS  AND  PERFECTS 
THAT  WHICH  HAS  PRECEDED  IT." 

The  rich  and  excellent  commentary  of  this  great  scholar, 
was  not  in  the  hands  of  the  present  writer,  whilst  preparing 
the  course  of  Lectures  now  issued  ;  nor  had  he,  in  consequence, 
the  advantage  of  Bengel's  criticisms,  in  tracing  out  the  fillet, 
on  which  these  several  virtues  of  the  Christian  character  are 
threaded  together.  It  is  with  the  deepest  self-distrust,  there- 
fore, that  the  writer  would  record  his  doubt,  whether  the 
former  half  of  the  sentence  or  motto  thus  derived  from  Ben- 
gel,  presents  as  justly  the  controlling  idea  of  the  Apostle's 
mind,  in  the  structure  of  this  passage,  as  does  the  latter  or 
concluding  section  of  the  paragraph. 

To  the  writer,  at  least,  it  has  seemed  that  the  purpose  of 
Peter's  argmnent  and  appeal  was,  not  so  much  to  show  how 


APPENDIX.  255 

each  preceding  grace  ongi?uitcd  the  succeeding  one,  as  to 
make  clear  how  each  succeeding  one  was  required  to  guard, 
or  as  Bcngel  has  expressed  it,  "  to  attemper^'  that  which  has 
gone  before.  The  soul  of  the  disciple  was  tempted, — so  at 
h^ast  we  apprehend  the  thought  of"  the  apostle,  or  rather  of  tlie 
Infinite  and  Infallible  Spirit  through  him — to  pause  at  each 
step  of  attainment,  as  though  that  step  were  final  and  con- 
summate. It  was  his  interest  to  sec  how  each  virtue,  if  thus 
accepted  as  a  resting-place,  involved  a  coming  short  of  the 
glorious  goal ;  and  how  a  Christian  entirencss  and  fulness  of 
character  required,  that  to  guard  the  preceding  grace  from 
isolation  and  excess,  it  should  have  the  addition  and  counter- 
poise of  the  grace  next  following. 

Faith,  then,  being  as  Bengel  remarks,  the  gift  of  God,  and 
not  therefore,  accordmg  to  him,  recounted  among  the  graces 
which  man  is  here  required  to  "  add,"  "  minister,"  or  "  sup- 
ply ;"*  there  follow  seven  graces,  or  fruits  of  the  Spirit,  making 
up  a  choir  or  band,  of  which  the  circle  begins  with  Faith,  and 
is  rounded  and  ended  by  Charity.  These  graces  man  is  com- 
manded, as  the  regenerate  disciple  and  servant  of  the  Holy 
Ghost,  to  supply,  so  that  the  one  may  carry  forward  the  work, 
and  complete  the  deficiencies  of  the  other  going  before  it. 

All  human  systems  of  morality  have  betrayed  this  inherent 
weakness,  and  this  immedicable  partiality  of  the  unregenerate 

*  If  the  great  theologian  and  expositor  intended  to  assert  that  be- 
cause Faith  is  a  boon  from  Heaven,  it  is  not  therefore  a  duty  required 
of  each  rnan,  to  whom  God's  truth  comes,  his  sentiment  can  hardly  re- 
ceive our  assent.  For  each  other  grace,  which  the  disciple  is  here  bid- 
dea  tc  snpphj,  is  aI?o  the  fruit  of  God's  bounty.  Grace  has  its  very 
name  from  the  favor  or  bounteousncss  of  God.  Its  origination  in  the 
free  love  of  God  the  sovereign,  towards  man  the  rebel,  docs  not  destroy 
man's  obligations  to  exercise  it.  But  men  are  condemned  before  God, 
because  they  believe  not,  at  the  same  time  evading  thus  a  duty,  and 
4pu)ning  a  favor. 


256  APPENDIX. 

mind,  against  wliich  Peter  here  cautions  us  ;  and  their  virtues 
have  been  isolated,  and  havo  oAved  their  prominence  and  bril- 
liancy, to  use  language  already  quoted  from  Isaac  Taylor,  "  to 
the  sjjoliation  of  some  spurned  aiid  forgotten  qualities."  He 
has  in  the  following  terms  illustrated  his  meaning  more  at 
length  :  "Almost  every  excellence  in  the  science  of  morals 
has  been  attained  by  sages — except  completeness  and  consis- 
tency :  the  completeness  and  consistency  of  its  morality  is  the 
peculiar  praise  of  the  ethics  which  the  Bible  has  taught. 
Often,  if  we  might  so  speak,  the  strength  of  the  materials  of 
six  parts  of  morality  have  been  brought  together,  wherewith 
to  construct  a  seventh  part  ;  and  so  much  of  magnificence 
and  elevation  has,  by  this  means,  been  obtained  for  the  single 
virtue,  whether  it  Avere  fortitude,  courage,  patriotism,  or  be- 
neficence, that  mankind,  in  their  admiration,  have  forgotten 
the  cost  at  which  it  has  been  produced."* 

And  this  tendency  to  pamper  single  virtues  on  the  slaugh- 
ter and  ruin  of  others,  to  create  what  we  may  call  a  system 
of  moral  primogeniture,  confiscating  the  substance  of  the  sister 
graces  to  enrich  some  single  heiress  amongst  them,  has  not 
been  at  once  or  entirely  overcome,  amongst  those  receiving  the 
full  and  symmetrical  code  of  morals  presented  by  Divine  Rev- 
elation. The  Jew  was  accused,  under  the  older  economy,  of 
being  "  partial  in  God's  law,"  or,  in  other  w^ords,  of  selecting 
his  favorite  and  easier  precepts,  and  endeavoring  to  make  his 
exaggerated  zeal  for  these  a  dispensation  from  all  obedience  to 
other  commands,  quite  as  explicit,  and  often  far  more  import- 
ant. The  Corban  vow  was  to  shield  an  unnatural  child  in 
beggaring  his  parents  under  pretext  of  piety.  And  under  tho 
New  Testament,  the  same  fraudulent  disposition, — to  select, 
as  interest  or  inclination  might  prompt,  our  own  favorite  pre- 
cepts and  duties,  to  the  utter  oblivion  or  avowed  scorn  of  com- 

*  Saturday  Evening,  p.  174. 


APPENDIX.  257 

mauds  and  obligations  more  unwelcome, — ^has  manifested  it- 
self within  the  enclosures  of  the  nominal  Church,  and  even  in 
the  hearts  of  true  disciples.  The  description  of  christian  sym- 
metry given  by  the  Apostle  of  the  circumcision,  in  this  text, 
appears  as  a  solemn  protest,  on  the  part  of  the  God  of  Holi- 
ness, against  this  infirmity  of  man's  nature.  The  lesson  opens 
by  requiring  Faith,  or  tliat  man  should  believe  all  that  God 
has  said  ;  and  th.it  lesson  closes  by  demanding  Charity,  or 
that  man  should  love  even  as  God  loves. 

A  christian  nobleman  of  Britain,  Lord  Lindsay,  in  a  work 
which,  though  brief,  has  evidently  cost  its  author  much 
thought,  and  been  elaborated  from  the  results  of  a  wide 
range  of  reading,  has  presented  a  theory,  in  which  he  sums 
up  the  designs  of  Providence  for  the  race,  and  the  consequent 
destiny  of  the  nations.  To  his  work  he  has  given  a  title  : 
"  Progression  by  Antagonism,"*  which  explains  the  sub- 
stance of  his  theory.  He  imagines  that  the  diflerent  nations 
and  stocks  of  mankind  have  developed  certain  faculties  of  the 
mind,  disproportionately,  and  as  in  opposition  or  "  antago- 
nism"  to  each  other.  Without  accepting  all  the  principles 
or  the  conclusions  of  the  noble  scholar,  a  christian  reader  may 
welcome  the  main  truth,  that  out  of  this  Antagonism  of  one 
imperfect  character  to  another, — imperfect  also,  but  imperfect 
on  some  other  side, — God  has  been  deriving  the  "  jfvogrcss," 
and  more  perfect  education  of  the  race.  To  the  main  princi 
pie  binding,  or  to  use  the  expression  of  duesnel,  "  chaining" 
U)gether  the  graces  enumerated  by  Peter,  we  should  suppose 
the  title  of  Lord  Lindsay's  work  not  an  inapplicable  one 
Each  new  grace  is  antagonistic  to  the  preceding  one  in  the 
Apostle's  classification,  not  as  intrinsically  opposed  to  it,  but 
as  its  counterpoise  and  corrective,  supplying  its  deficiencies, 
and    counteracting  its   excesses.     Between  the  antagonisms 

*  Progression  by  Antagonism.     London,  1846. 


258 


APPENDIX. 


thus  supplied,  the  soul,  renewed  and  God-fashioned  by  grace 
from  above,  oscillates,  as  does  the  pendulum  between  the  two 
opposite  ends  of  its  arc  ;  and  this  perpetual  antagonism  supplies 
the  requisite  movement  or  "  progress"  in  which  the  man  goes 
on,  from  grace  to  grace.  The  moral  pendulum  has  more 
than  its  tivo  points  of  contrast,  or  antagonism,  indeed ;  and 
here  the  comparison  fails. 

Adams,  the  Puritan,  in  his  exposition  of  Peter,  has  endeav- 
ored to  trace  a  close  parallel  between  the  eight  graces  com- 
mended by  Peter,  and  the  eight  beatitudes  opening  our  Lord's 
sermon  on  the  Mount.  It  is,  however,  rudely  done,  and  with 
some  violence,  as  it  appears  to  us,  alike  to  the  language  of 
the  Apostle,  and  to  that  of  the  Apostle's  Lord  and  Master.    ' 

All  christian  excellence  is  in  its  own  nature  homogeneous 
and  one.  In  the  controlling  love  of  its  God,  and  in  a  grow- 
ing assimilation  to  this  Divine  and  Perfect  Object  of  its  love, 
its  life — its  essence  lies.  But  the  relations  under  which  this 
Author  of  our  souls, — the  divine  claimant  of  the  highest  af- 
fections of  these  souls, — has  placed  us  towards  our  fellow-men, 
and  the  other  inhabitants  of  His  Universe,  are  many  and 
multiform.  In  ascertaining  the  due  balance  between  the 
several  claims  upon  us  of  these  varied  relations,  difficulties 
often  occur.  As  the  Spirit  of  God,  implanting  the  Love  of 
God,  must  supply  the  first  impulse  and  the  motive  power  of 
the  moral  mechanism  of  man's  soul,  so  the  Word  of  God 
decides  the  laws  of  oscillation,  within  which  this  impulse 
works.  Those  laws  are  variously  stated,  according  to  thfi 
fewness  or  fulness  of  the  relations  contemplated. 


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14 


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